Perhaps this should go under "How to Kill Classical Music Part MMMCLXLI" (with apologies to Greg Sandow, e.g.)
Bernard Holland’s review of a new CD of Brahms 1st Symphony manages to make itself utterly useless in its self-referentiality:
So ubiquitous is the piece that one more recording of it cannot reallyexpect to say anything startling about Brahms that hundreds of othershave not already said.
…Otherwise, we hear the Brahms symphony we know and love treated withrespect, an appropriate sense of drama and at times even a littleimpetuosity.
I’m a professional classical musician, and talked to about six or seven other professional classical musicians this morning at church (all singers, for what it’s worth), and not one of them could hum a theme from Brahms’ 1st. Now, it is certainly true that Brahms 1 is part of the standard symphonic repertoire. But you know what? Even most people who love classical music can’t even identify all the Beethoven symphonies out of thin air. That’s just a fact. There’s a lot of great stuff out there — an embarassment of riches, too much for anyone to know all of it.
You have to ask: Who does Holland imagine his audience is? The tiny sliver of folks who are regular symphony subscribers? Brahms fans? Do the rest of us not merit more than a perfunctory attempt to describe the experience of listening to Brahms 1? (Wow, it’s got "an appropriate sense of drama". Gotta get some of that.)
The sad thing is that most people (including me) would scan that review and immediately think: "That’s not for me, I don’t know that work, I’m not on the inside, I’m not smart enough to like that kind of music." I, for one, am tired of being made to feel stupid about music when I’ve spent my whole life in it — just not in the same corner that Mr. Holland’s been in.
PS: If you want good classical music writing, go see Alex Ross’s blog, or pick up a New Yorker, for which he writes. He gets it.
david says
I didn’t know about the Alex Ross blog – thanks!