Cloth-eared critics

[Bryn]

One of my favourite music-related books is Nicolas Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invectiive. However, it deals mainly, though not exclusively, with nasty things said by critics of musicians. Reading through Paul Zukofsky's notes re. Feldman's For John Cage I found this:

"This piece is a 70th birthday present for John, so we should end with a story -- an homage to John's stories. What shal it be? I know -- do you remember the time I came to Buffalo to do a concert of John's Six Melodies (just intonation), his solo violin version of Cheap Imitation (pythagorean intonation), and your Spring of Chosroes (mean tone), and the music critic (an ex-student of yours, no less!) wrote that he didn't understand why I had such a good reputation since I had such a great deal of trouble with my intonation (this after having come back stage to look at the music, and failing to understand the pitch notation)? . . . "

So I thought, with the Season of Good Will coming up, how about some further examples of cloth-eared critics?

[pastoralguy]

My favourite was the critic Hanslick , who stated that Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto proved that music could 'stink to the ear!' Guess he got that wrong!

[ahinton]

I can't immediately call any instances to mind but I imagine that I'm going to enjoy following this thread!

[pastoralguy]

More locally, our late critic of the Scotsman newspaper paper wrote that Igor Oistrakh was a 'man who played the violin with his fists!' Pillock!

However, I once went to an Edinburgh Festival concert where Neemi Jarvi conducted Sibelius' 4th symphony in the first half. Alas, the fire alarm went off during the slow movement and the Usher Hall had to be evacuated. The following day, the Scotsman's music critic wrote a damning review saying the fire alarm prevented the conclusion of 'a truly dire piece of music!' Actually, the performers DID complete the performance as my stiffly worded letter to the organ pointed out! I was surprised when they printed my complete letter where I pointed out that perhaps their critic should develop some musical maturity before showing her ignorance in a national newspaper.

[Old Grumpy]

More locally, our late critic of the Scotsman newspaper paper wrote that Igor Oistrakh was a 'man who played the violin with his fists!' Pillock!

However, I once went to an Edinburgh Festival concert where Neemi Jarvi conducted Sibelius' 4th symphony in the first half. Alas, the fire alarm went off during the slow movement and the Usher Hall had to be evacuated. The following day, the Scotsman's music critic wrote a damning review saying the fire alarm prevented the conclusion of 'a truly dire piece of music!' Actually, the performers DID complete the performance as my stiffly worded letter to the organ pointed out! I was surprised when they printed my complete letter where I pointed out that perhaps their critic should develop some musical maturity before showing her ignorance in a national newspaper.

Not a cloth eared critic, but I was present at an annual Huddersfield Choral Society performance of Messiah in the Town Hall which was interrupted by a fire alarm. Everyone was ushered into the adjoining street for the duration (it was raining). It was a false alarm, and the performance was recommenced at an appropriate point.
I was amused to read subsequently in the Huddersfield Examiner that the alarm was thought to have been triggered by cooking fumes from a meal being prepared in the Town Hall for the Society's corporate sponsors.

They comment that "Choral officials decided 'the show must go on' and they resumed the concert after the 20-minute break" - I think there would have been a riot had they not!

[pastoralguy]

Oh boy, this thread has crashed and burned!

[Old Grumpy]

Oh boy, this thread has crashed and burned!

Ah well, maybe it can arise, phoenix-like from the ashes!

OG

[gradus]

Orpheus extinction.

[jayne lee wilson]

Here's a selection......

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/legendary-pieces-critics-hated/beethoven-9/

[Old Grumpy]

Here's a selection......

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-m...d/beethoven-9/

Ironic, perhaps, that it takes Classic FM (and JLW, of course) to resurrect a R3 thread!

OG

[Barbirollians]

Richard Morrison describing Barbirolli’s 1960s Elgar 2 as staid and stolid on BAL - when 1 it is opposite possibly over emotional and 2 he chose as the winner the heavily Barbirolli influenced Barenboim recording .

[Oakapple]

A critic wrote a damning review of the first performance of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite. The trouble was the critic was not even at the concert and he had not realized that the performance had been postponed to another date.

George Bernard Shaw liked to be critical of music. He said the third movement of Brahms' clarinet quintet reminded him of a hornpipe and that it deserved a better fate than to be buried alive by Brahms.

And then I knew of a critic for a regional newspaper who always left concerts at the interval. He would phone one of the organizers the next morning just to check that nothing unusual had happened in the second half that he should mention in his report. The organizers were happy to play along with this in return for a good review.

[LHC]

One of the best examples must be the London critics on hearing Carlos Kleiber’s unexpected London debut:

On June 9 1981, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra at the Festival Hall as a last-minute replacement for the ailing Karl Bohm. The programme included Schubert's Third and Beethoven's Seventh Symphonies. Next morning the reviews were acrimoniously hostile.

The Daily Telegraph's critic called the concert "a disastrously unhappy affair, bewildering in its coarseness and insensitivity", while the Guardian spoke of "exaggerations and idiosyncrasies". Kleiber vowed never to conduct a London concert again - and never did

A friend of mine was at that concert and afterwards described it as one of most exciting concerts he had ever seen.

[akiralx]

Didn't one well-known critic/webmeister describe Karajan's recording of Carmina Burana as slick and superficial - when it doesn't actually exist?

[pastoralguy]

I remember getting VERY bent out of shape when a BAL contributor disqualified Ida Haendel when the Britten violin concerto was under scrutiny. Some nonsense about how she'd altered the cadenza from what Britten wrote. Apparently, she wrote to Britten suggesting her changes only to have him throw a hissy fit and replying that he would not sanction her suggestions. Being Ida Haendel, she changed them anyway causing said critic to take the moral high ground.

I remember posting 'Shoddy, shoddy and SHODDY treatment for dismissing one of the greatest violinists thus', on the old BBC message boards only to be reprimanded by the producer! Silly bugger!