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March 2013

Commentary: What's Happening to Music Criticism?


Olin_downes, NY Times Critic
"No statue has ever been erected to a critic." - Jean Sibelius

Times are tough for music criticism. Just this past year, one newspaper reassigned one of their two full-time music critics, offered the classical music editor a retirement buyout (with no intention of replacing him), and only runs half of the stories they assign. In their place, this same paper has taken to running dubious Top 20 composer lists and profiles of presenters that feel one way to attract new audiences is by turning concerts into fashion shows. 

No, this isn't the Miami Herald or the Des Moines Registerit's our very own New York Times, once referred to as the "paper of record" and, for more than a century, this country's go-to arbiter of art and culture. As recently as 1978, the Times had five full-time classical music critics that contributed up to 40 reviews a week, but by 2002, that number had dropped to three full-time critics and two stringers (essentially, a regular freelancer).

Today, the Times has exactly ONE full-time critic: Tony Tommasini, who's still referred to as the "Chief Music Critic," even though there's no one else under him. And that's to say nothing of the Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, and the half-dozen other New York City papers that once offered serious music coverage on par with the Times but have since either folded or fired their critics. The way things are going, it won't be long before there's zero classical music coverage in New York's mainstream media. Wow.

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University of Kansas Wind Ensemble at Carnegie Hall

University of Kansas Wind Ensemble, Carnegie Hall

"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Become a world famous orchestra, pianist, or singer—or, just cough up about $25,000.

Whenever a student or other amateur ensemble rents out Carnegie Hall, most seasoned New Yorkers groan and look the other way. After all, most of these unsanctioned visits tend to be vanity tours for the ensembles involved, stoked about traveling to the Big City to play on the World's Most Famous Stage (and maybe catch a matinee of Mamma Mia! while they're in town.) 

Every now and again, however, a jewel can be found among this wasteland of student recitals and overdressed soloists. Case in point: last night's concert by the University of Kansas Wind Ensemble. Yes, Dorothy, the Jayhawks are known for more than just basketball: these kids have developed a reputation as one of the best wind bands in the land, with no less than four Naxos albums under their belt.

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Stockhausen's OKTOPHONIE at the Park Avenue Armory

oktophonie, park avenue armory, 3/23/13

"My music is a fast spaceship to the divine." – Karlheinz Stockhausen

In May 2007, I happened to find myself in Rome for a concert of electronic music by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the most influential—if polarizing—musical figures of the 20th century. Stockhausen himself sat at a soundboard in the center of Sinopoli Hall, fiddling with knobs while synthesized sounds bounced around the interior, projected from all directions. Included on the program that day was the world premiere of Cosmic Pulses, an hour-long torrent of sound that finally had its NYC premiere at Issue Project Room in 2011 (and would have been performed last October at Alice Tully Hall, were it not for Superstorm Sandy).

The Rome concert turned out to be the last one that Stockhausen ever gave: he died unexpectedly of a heart attack six months later at his home in Kürten, Germany. Fortunately, Stockhausen's longtime collaborators, Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer, have carried on, offering authoritative performances of Stockhausen's iconoclastic works while scrupulously maintaining and protecting his musical legacy. 

But, since Stockhausen's passing over five years ago, Suzanne and Kathinka haven't been seen on our shores—until this week, that is, where they both arrived to present the NY premiere of OKTOPHONIE at the Park Avenue Armory's Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Completed in 1991, OKTOPHONIE was originally the musical accompaniment to Dienstag (Tuesday), part of Stockhausen's massive seven-opera cycle, Licht. But, it also stands on its own, "like a surviving capital from a cathedral ruin," as Joe Drew states in the program notes.

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