reviewer no longer to be confused by his notes
La Cieca’s cher public — and music lovers around the world — won’t have Bernard Holland to kick around any more. The veteran classical music reviewer is leaving the New York TImes after 27 years, though to us who read him regularly it has easily seemed twice that. Holland is one of about 85 NYT newsroom employees who have accepted a buyout offer intended to streamline the paper’s staff.
Remaining full-time classical music reviewers are Anthony Tommasini and Allan Kozinn; the paper also publishes reviews by James R. Oestreich (editor of classical music and dance) and freelancers Steve Smith and Vivien Schweitzer. [via musicalamerica.com]
What do Maureen Dowd and William Kristol have to do with music criticism?
Why we’re at it lets get rid of those twin hacks Frank Rich and Paul Krugman.
And there were bravas after that? OMG!
Cieca cara, can you give us the download link? This Eb is priceless
Ouch!! And boy did she take her time with the rest of it.
Does anybody remember Andrew Porter. He was music
critic of THE NEW YORKER magazine until he went back to London. You could subjectively not agree with some of his positions on singers,directors,or the work itself, but he was a very fine critic of the New York music scene, and opera, most especially. I wis he was still here.
Holland’s trouble was that he was a decent and sometimes insightful critic for piano recitals and orchestral concerts. But doesn’t a major metropolitan daily requires generalists, not specialists? I’d agree Steve Smith has pretty good tastes but he lacks writing style. Schweitzer is a dumbdumb or a fraud, Oestreich a bore. Kozinn is the best they’ve got (…except for opera). What happened to La Midgette? She had a tiring prose style but at least knew her voices.
Krugman is hardly a hack. A failed bully perhaps (note his clear annoyance in not being able to get Hillary nominated or Greenspan un-deified), but not a hack. He’s a respected economist.
But back to the music critics. AT, for all his many issues, has his heart in the right place. His recent piece on Mortier was, all things considered, pretty good work. And he’s more enthusiastic than any of the others. Still, none of them come close to Alex Ross or even Justin Davidson.
According to wikipedia, Ms. Midgette has been writing for the Washington Post since Jan. of this year.
I would love to see the Times give laCieca and Maury D a shot. They could host 10 bloggers to review a few performances, and then picks some and give them the opera beat. I happen to like David Patrick Stearns of the Phila Inquirer (I think he’s still there). I would also love to read Famous Quickly’s reviews. Perhaps we can get Leontyne, Marilyn, and some recently retired singers to write as well. The portions of the reviews that are pre-written are the least informative. Most reviews don’t seem to have added much in the 2 days it takes to show up in print.
I know a lot of people don’t like Anne Midgette, but she’s a breath of fresh air here in DC after Tim Page, who seemed only interested in which conductor would get the music director job at which symphony orchestra. Midgette may trash too many performers but at least she seems to care about voices.