# Critics and Musicians



## Air

Listeners and critics alike often assign a "label" to musicians, especially the more well-known ones.

So here are a few off the top of my head, both good and bad (and most of which I completely disagree with):

Karajan is too obsessed with SOUND.
Michelangeli is HEARTLESS.
Hofmann and Heifetz are MACHINES.
Bernstein things that JUMPING on a podium is the same thing as conducting.
Celibidache is too SLOW.
Except Richter, Russians can't play SCHUBERT.
Russians can't PLAY contemporary music.
Rubinstein and Cortot pay Chopin THE RIGHT WAY.
Boulez and Brendel are too PEDANTIC.
Toscanini is OVERRATED.
du Pre and Gould are too IDIOSYNCRATIC.
Cziffra captures the SOUL of Liszt.
Horowitz has an amazing SONORITY.
Argerich RUSHES.
Schnabel and Cortot FAIL when it comes to playing the right notes.
Mutter has too WIDE a vibrato.
Except Gieseking, Germans can't PLAY Debussy or Ravel.
The older Perlman got the WORSE he played.

And of course:

Hilary Hahn leaves me COLD (Not really, I just wanted to include this one in here... )

Etc.

(I just realized I didn't include ones about composers. Well, there are many of those!)

Can you think of any?


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## World Violist

Um...

Bruckner rewrote the same symphony 9-11 times.
All there is to Mahler is a bunch of self-indulgent kitchen-sink symphonies that are hardly even symphonies.
Yehudi Menuhin was a crappy violinist because he couldn't play some notes in tune.
Sibelius didn't contribute anything to music.
Bach is heartless.
Webern is just a composer of useless bleeps and bloops that can't mean anything to anyone.
Boulez is just a mathematician who happens to compose music and hate everyone else's.
Bernstein was only interested in theatricality.
Conductors today only care about pretty sounds.
Einojuhani Rautavaara is pretentious.
So is Arvo Part.
So is John Adams.
So is Pierre Boulez.
Chopin didn't do anything but write a catalogue of sound-effects for piano.
OR
Chopin was the greatest piano composer EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111

etc... this is hopelessly depressing...


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## TWhite

Some of my favorites: 

The music of Rachmaninov is simply undigested Tchiakovsky.
Brahms was not a good orchestrator.
The piano music of Liszt is way too 'showy' (like all that passage-work in Chopin ISN'T?)
Schubert should only be played on a Fortepiano.
Verdi is less melodic than Puccini.
Richard Strauss wrote only for the 'cheap effect' (whatever THAT means!).
The Beethoven Piano Sonatas are not "Pianistic" (I LOVE this one!).

Tom


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## World Violist

Schumann was only good at writing miniatures and his orchestration sucked.
Bach, Mozart, etc. should only be played with the exact kinds of instruments and style used back then.


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## Head_case

> Listeners and critics alike often assign a "label" to musicians, especially the more well-known ones.


?

Listeners and critics use adjectives and descriptions to describe the phenomenal world around them. When such descriptions arise from opinion rather than a balanced or informed worldview, we deal with the world of the 'listener' and his feedback. When offered from the latter, the notion of 'critic' arises from 'critical appraisal' - being versed in the repertoire and genre of music enough to offer relevant feedback. Which is not to say, that it will necessarily be music which we like to hear.

Jonathan Woolf and David Fanning are some of the most informative music writers I've had the chance to come across. On the otherhand, reading stuff from a forum is of a different league lol.

Well, I'll play ball:

1. Anything I like sounds the best. 
2. I like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn. 
3. Anything I haven't heard that isn't in an obvious major key is boring. 
4. Myaskovsky is someone whose name I can barely pronounce
5. Therefore Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn are the best. Myaskovsky is boring.

Well, I don't think such stereotyping makes for great discussion on a forum


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## starry

Forums always use stereotypes, not for discussion but to state 'facts'.


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## Head_case

Well we're all mature enough to read between the lines when we see such facts by such extroverts, right?


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## Sid James

World Violist said:


> Um...
> ...Boulez is just a mathematician who happens to compose music and hate everyone else's...


I recently read a cd review on classicstoday.com where the reviewer said the music (by Boulez) sounded like an ape was at the keyboard, jabbing at notes randomly. I don't think that I agree with that at all (then in another review, the same critic praised Boulez's music - go figure?)...


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## Argus

Vivaldi wrote the same concerto about 500 times
Philip Glass just plays the same 6 note phrase in every one of his works
John Cage was just a prankster

And the classic:

Jimmy Page was sloppy


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## starry

Bernstein 'too romantic'
Furtwangler 'too slow' or 'too idiosyncratic'
Toscanini 'too fast'


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## Vaneyes

Chromatic ______. That was a fave.


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## gmubandgeek

Argus said:


> Vivaldi wrote the same concerto about 500 times
> Philip Glass just plays the same 6 note phrase in every one of his works
> John Cage was just a prankster
> 
> And the classic:
> 
> Jimmy Page was sloppy


Not gonna lie I do agree with the Vivaldi criticism. I can almost always identify his tired out ritornello. BUT, he his certainly an important figure in Wester Music.

Wish I could think of a criticism but everyone said most of them.


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## Huilunsoittaja

How about this:

"Sibelius was the worst composer ever!"

Look up "Sibelius" and "worst" on google, and you'll find that.


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## Sid James

Huilunsoittaja said:


> How about this:
> 
> "Sibelius was the worst composer ever!"
> 
> Look up "Sibelius" and "worst" on google, and you'll find that.


That's probably because of the criticisms of Adorno & Leibowitz. Few people would agree with them now. But Sibelius is still a pretty polarizing/controversial figure, no doubt...


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## Huilunsoittaja

Andre said:


> That's probably because of the criticisms of Adorno & Leibowitz. Few people would agree with them now.


Exactly, I was shocked anyone would say that.

Likely those people hadn't heard any Glazunov, eh?


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## Delela

Hello.........

I am trying to find articles/reviews, most commonly written about the jazz musicians of the "post bop/avant garde", particularly about
Eric Dolphy
Sam Rivers
John Coltrane
(anyone) etc, etc.
The critics called them "anti jazz" musicians, and other names.

The mid 1960's just happens to be my favorite era of jazz, so far. I am making a compilation, and would love to have some of the narrow-minded articles and reviews of the music and musicians. I think it will accentuate how progressive and purposeful it was to the people who dared to create it.


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