Critical mASSacre – Sticks and Drones

In last Sunday’s Deseret News the music critic Edward Reichel, delivered a stinging attack. Now, he accuses Keith Lockhart of only being able to see the “obvious”. On the surface his review is “obviously” about Keith, however I read the review completely differently. It wasn’t really about Keith at all…..

Firstly as conductors, we are fair game. We can’t just believe good reviews and ignore the bad ones, I take them all with the preverbial grain, and I suspect Keith probably had a good laugh being accused of not having subtlety, from a reviewer that has even less!

There is something deeper going on here though, as the review turns from criticism to “eliticism” towards the audience that night. Here’s a breakdown:

Beethoven’s work was reduced to a gibberish of bleating brass and pounding percussion that would have made a 10-year-old cringe.

Hmmm, so since the reaction was overwhelmingly positive, he is saying the entire audience is collectively dumber than a fifth grader?

There was nothing redeeming about the performance. As I wrote in my review, it was “overdone and overplayed” and “reduced to its simplest component — noise.”

But, of course, that’s what most people in the audience want — and Lockhart knows it. Give them something loud and brassy and you’re assured a standing ovation (although standing ovations are a norm at concerts in Utah and aren’t indicative of the quality of a given performance).

So he proclaims that he knows definitively what the audience wants? That they are so stupid that they will stand for anything that is loud and brassy, and that standing ovations are not indicative of the quality? Is quality the only reason that people stand or should stand? I guess he believes that in Utah’s performances he should have a sign, and if he deems it to be a quality performance, he should hold it up to “allow” people to stand. He suggests that people don’t know anything, what next, should the ticket office have a quiz at the ready to see if people are “qualified” to purchase a ticket? Here’s a list of some reasons people stand (all told to me by audience members):

They loved the performance!
They love the conductor (mostly family)
They are proud and want to support the orchestra by standing for them and with them
They are standing for the composer (alive or dead)
A soloist or section within the orchestra excited them so when they were recognized, they stood with them
They don’t know why, it just moved them
Even if it wasn’t the greatest performance they wanted to recognize the achievement
They wanted to make sure their friends in the orchestra saw them
They were getting up to leave
They have restless legs (I’m not making this one up)
They wanted to get away from the critic (ok I am making this one up)

To suggest there there is only one reason to stand is actually dumbing it down. Lastly and this is classic:

Nor do many people, including Lockhart, realize that there is quite a bit in the Ninth that is subtle.

OK we have just left Utah and are passing judgement on the audiences of the world!

As “obvious” as his attack on Keith was, “subtly” he is also passing judgement on people, and with that he misses the obvious, and that is that these same people that he just cast judgement upon also help to keep his paper in business!

Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.

Jean Sibelius

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