Coming into this blog rather late, I’m almost as overwhelmed by the plethora of ideas here as I was Thursday night at the U.S. premiere of the Brian Ferneyhough/Charles Bernstein opera, “Shadowtime.” I don’t make the comparison lightly. To address the original topic: American critics have to apprehend a wider range of artistic expression than their European counterparts. The first question I ask when encountering anything I’m reviewing is this: What rules does this piece play by? Even though experimental modernism is out of fashion in the U.S., American critics still have to parse densely written works by Ferneyhough, Matthias Pintscher and others, while, at the other end of the spectrum, coming to terms with more retro, derivative pieces such as Mark Adamo’s “Little Women.”

My personal tastes lie more with Elliott Carter and Charles Wuorinen (anybody heard his marvelous Piano Concerto No. 4 this season?), but if “Little Women” has accomplished what it set out to do – which is to give the world another Gian Carlo Menotti opera – I certainly acknowledge the art and craft that created a new work that’s going to reach more people than “Shadowtime.” In the realm of opera production, I similarly have to acknowledge why the Metropolitan Opera’s straightforward, decorative Wagner productions are all but institutionalized in New York, though if I’m going to be anything but provincial, keeping abreast of the latest conceptual production to arrive on DVD from Stuttgart is part of job description.

European critics enjoy a wider range of repertoire, since the early-music movement has a higher profile there. That means they have to come to terms with Jacob Obrecht during the 500th anniversary since his death in ways that Americans do not. And this is our loss. I’d love to write about Obrecht because the more variety I have in my ears, the fresher I’ll be. I attempt to clean out my brain with forays into the theater, and by approaching an assignment to review Bebe Neuwirth singing Kurt Weill with the Philadelphia Orchestra as seriously as I would a new George Crumb work with Philadelphia’s Orchestra 2001. That’s the only way I can go back to the Dvorak New World Symphony time after time with the necessary alertness.

Years back at a music critic conference in Aspen, Leonard Slatkin said that just as it’s his duty to discover new meaning in every performance of oft-heard old-world music, it’s the critic’s duty to do the same. I take that very seriously. North American critics are more likely than Europeans to live in communities with a limited musical diet - and to be far from other musical centers that might fill in the blind spots. But there's no way I can accept such limitations in my musical diet. It’s true that most of my readers will only hear any given opera when produced by the local company (which in Philadelphia means no Wagner, among other things). European critics may not have as much of a duty as we have to lead their readers out of the potential stagnation of any given classical music season - a stagnation that sometimes seems instutionalized by the managements of various American performing arts organizations. And if critics aren’t always in the process of defying stagnation - especially in a political and cultural climate that's less sympathetic than Europe's to the fine arts - we’re serving neither our professions nor the art that we write about.

But what I didn’t see addressed when I looked over the comments yesterday was something I feel is a defining trait and problem of both criticism and classical music in general in the US: isolationism (dare I say provincialism?). I started out as a critic in Germany, and the job involved traveling all over Europe going to different notable performances. I got to know a lot of different performers, a lot of different house styles. In the US by contrast most of us are confined to one city with occasional road trips out -- and the very fact that New Yorkers think they’re at the center of the universe makes New York one of the most provincial places of all. I was struck when “Meistersinger” returned to the Met a couple of years ago that some people had not seen the opera since the Met last performed it. And sure, the world’s orchestras come through Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center; but hearing the Leipzig Gewandhaus in Leipzig (which I have done), or the Cleveland Orchestra in Cleveland (which I haven’t) is a whole different ball game. This means that American critics have a narrower frame of reference. I would even say that we are more eager to crown stars (thanks, Hugh, for pointing out that Renee Fleming is not seen as such great shakes in the UK -- and dare I add the name of another American heroine, Deborah Voigt?) -- although admittedly I’ve seen English critics effuse madly and prematurely over decent performers as well.

I think the problem of isolation also affects the orchestra world here -- opera houses possibly to a lesser degree because economic pressures are leading to increased co-productions. But American orchestras seem to me each to be trying to invent the wheel and come up with new ways of dealing with the current cultural climate, just as American critics individually sit and pronounce on them.

I have seen an increase in discussions in the last months which may eventually help to countervene this trend, in part precisely because of blogs like this. Is it possible they don’t even need to be public, and that the exchange benefits those of us who participate even more than it does our readers?

Where we do part is in approach, given the needs of our newspapers and our communities and our own personalities. This doesn't mean we're soft when tough issues crop up, performance-wise or otherwise, nor that we avoid going against the flow of public opinion. Wherever we live, we try to generate interest through lively writing and broad viewpoints. As Norman says, we need to think out of the box. How? By finding ways to make what we do utterly fascinating to the reader. If that sometimes means getting out of review mode to write a column or an interview or a feature or a news story, all the better. Unpredictability and the occasional touch of humor don't hurt. Whatever draws the reader in, without compromising the subject, is fair game.

What we all agree we must to do is fight for space, fight for presence, fight to continue raising our voices pro or con. The fact that the field is getting smaller makes us more crucial than ever. If we continue to do our homework and invest energy and passion in what we do, maybe we can convince editors that we're not at all marginal. In the end, Allan has it right: we mostly want to listen and write. And we have to believe that someone out there wants to know what we're thinking.

But I don’t see much thinking outside the box. There is hardly a critic on earth who does not face pressure on space and demands to popularise. There is hardly a paper that has not reduced its critical strength and space and cut freelance fees. When I came into the game, a London oldtimer told that when he started the mid-market Daily Express employed five music critics, three of them on staff. These days, the mid-market has no music criticism and the top end hardly any staffers. The activity is in danger of becoming peripheral to newspapers, themselves an endangered species.

Against this backdrop, music criticism has hardly changed. That, it seems to me, is what we ought to be contemplating if we are to preserve and develop vibrant and diverse musical debate within mainstream media.

One issue not yet raised: star ratings. Hugh and I are almost alone in the UK press in not having a star system attached to our reviews (that is, to the quality of the event not to our writing...). They encourage an extremism, ie very good or very bad whereas most things are somewhere in the middle but that's considered dull criticism. It also saves you the bother of reading the attached text. It's fine for recordings but not live performance. I don't know whether that happens elsewhere but it discourages exploratory debate or, perish the thought. subtlety. It's just another demonstration of the trend to treat reviews chiefly as a consumer service.

Incidentally, in London we have a Critics Circle, struggling to survive beneath a stampede of apathy. Most of us belong but don't/can't attend meetings. In the time I've been a member, the most memorable debates have been about car parking space at the South Bank and second tickets Covent Garden. (You get my point.) It got a bit more lively when a member ended up in prison but unfortunately I missed that meeting. Maybe we're just not a clubbable lot. The fact is we all have to fight our own space battles with our editors and we can only do that alone.

I agree with many of Allan's comments, particularly on the mutability of reviews. I disagree with him on the long-term impact of the Baltimore imbroglio. Even if calculated, I can’t see how the ongoing Marin Alsop/Baltimore Symphony saga has been anything but a public-relations debacle for the orchestra. The fact that they were appointing a woman as music director, and one as well regarded as Alsop, would have been sufficient to get headlines and good press without any kind of devious web-spinning. The players may well have had worthy artistic grounds to object to Alsop; I wasn’t a fan of her recent Brahms recording either. But by barreling ahead without getting the musicians on the same page, the BSO management created an international embarrassment for a fine conductor and ensured that a cloud will hang over Alsop's tenure for years to come.

On the desirability of assigning different writers for advances and reviews: probably 80% of us are the only people handling our beats at our papers. Without the staff or resources available, we wind up covering nearly all aspects of the music beat---news, obits, arts reporting---ourselves. I can’t say this is a bad thing. True, there are times when one is chasing a hot story and regular music coverage can suffer, but that’s part of what makes journalism unpredictable and exciting. Shortly after I took up my present post the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra went on strike---hopefully, there was no connection---and I was effectively a labor reporter for two months, which was draining but rewarding. I think being forced to wear an assortment of journalistic headwear teaches versatility and a certain mental discipline (or, perhaps, as Allan said, “schizophrenia”) when one writes a positive feature on an artist and then must dispassionately evaluate their performance in a review.

I wonder if anyone feels that the trend towards increasing tardiness of reviews appearing in print has the effect of making classical music coverage seem irrelevant, both inside and outside of the newsroom. When I was a freelance critic for the Chicago Tribune in the 1990s the paper had an Overnight Page on the back of the A section, which was full of reviews, many from the previous night, often with live color art. That page and the concept of overnight reviews in general seem to have gone the way of the dodo bird. There's a vigor and freshness to next-day publication that make the arts beat exciting and the paper more attractive to readers. That edge gets dulled when a review runs 3, 4, or 5 days after an event. I can get reviews posted more quickly on our website. But by going to the web to provide readers with timely coverage, we inadvertently accelerate the demise of the traditional, hard-copy newspaper. Who wants to read a stale review of a Friday night concert in Tuesday’s paper when you can get it online by Saturday noon for free?

As I mentioned in a response to reader Barbara Scales (below), classical critics are professional Platonists, who relate what they hear to an ideal – a score and/or a “definitive” performance of the past. I think Allan Kozinn’s preference for criticism that operates in complete personal isolation from musicians and producers - a preference I don’t share - is a logical consequence of this view. The critic makes himself pure to contemplate the pure work of art.

As for differences across the Atlantic, I think European critics may be a bit more aware of the continuing political implications of the high-art music tradition. These have been obscured in the USA by the arts-for-all ideology that was necessary in order for an art-form developed for aristocrats to be transplanted into an officially egalitarian society.

Try all you want to discover differences in classical criticism between countries -- you will fail to find generalized meaningful distinctions other than language. Not only are classical critics too small a statistical number, but this is an extremely individualistic field. The vast majority of music critics in the world know much more about the field than their editors or publishers, giving us an enormous amount of latitude compared to other members of the press – even columnists or critics in other departments. This has engendered individual approaches everywhere to covering the scene. No two daily staff critics run the classical beat or critique concerts the same way. Not in the way a sports report or a film review are written. The classical critic is the institution. There are probably more differences within the London critics as there are similarities; likewise in New York. There are critics in London and Vienna I have looked to for inspiration and technique as much as any in the U.S.

Topics that are important to one’s region – and even Carnegie Hall or the Barbican fall into this category – shape one’s coverage. But there aren't any critical "schools" these days, are there? The true difference is in individual taste and makeup. Our training is so varied! I study scores every chance I get, but I know critics whose only qualifications is avid listening. Some of us have academic backgrounds; others have performed at a high level. Some of us are opera buffs; some prefer instrumental genres. Some of us write eloquently; some write bluntly. Some have high IQs; some EQs. Some of us like to please people; some revel in dispensing pain. We are markedly different from each other.

I am not praising this situation or decrying it, it’s just the reality. I sometimes think we should come up with a licensing board for critics, one that demands a passing of a test or display of knowledge, but that would never work because this is a broad field – there are more ways to write a good review than play a Chopin Etude. This doesn’t mean we aren’t accountable, but we should recognize how varied that can be accomplished.

I would not say, however, that we feel compelled to support the home team, either because it's the home team or because negative reviews might have economic ramifications. Ticket sales are the organization's job and problem, not ours; ours is to call it as we hear it.

We also feel, or at least I do, that the power we supposedly have is far less than people think. If we had any, would Lorin Maazel be music director of the New York Philharmonic? From the time his was announced as a candidate, the Times critical staff did everything it could to argue in print that this was a bad idea, and although I feel we've been fair in the sense of pointing out the things he does well, I think the general tenor of the reviews has been negative. If we had any actual power, would the Philharmonic have renewed his contract til 2009?

But I also don't think the job is about power, or should be. The power talk is just for people who want to complain about it us. We just listen and write.

One more thing about Baltimore: I was thinking about this. I ended my last post on the subject by saying that the orchestra guaranteed that we'd all be looking again at the end of her first contract. How shortsighted (or maybe longsighted) of me: they've actually written the Baltimore critics' assignment books for the next three years. First year, apart from the close reviewing the concerts would naturally have gotten anyway, there'll be a need for the "After The Fracas, How Did Her First Year Go?" piece. But of course, chances are her first season will include some programming residue from the Temirkanov years, so the second will have to begin with a close look at Alsop's first totally-in-control season, and will have to end with "After Two Years, What Changes Has She Wrought?" And then there's that last season, with the looming contract renewal (or not). Seems to me the PR department can just book itself a long vacation.

I’m encouraged to see that some people have raised a few points about reviewing vs. features writing. I’d like to suggest further discussion. I’m a freelance classical-music features writer (the newspaper I usually write for asks me to review only when it is truly desperate). And my status as “just” a features writer has forced me to contemplate the ways in which music writing is categorized.

I often wonder if the model of the god-like critic with a quiver of thunderbolts and the power to bestow immortality is an idea whose time has left: it all seems so authoritarian and obsessively fussy by the standards of today’s relativistic cultural climate. Classical music coverage seems ripe for change – and I would urge anyone who doubts this to contemplate two things: a) that music got along just fine for centuries without newspaper music criticism; and b) that few newspapers today publish the kind of high society or religion columns that were common 50 years ago. (Indeed, many papers have dropped these subjects altogether.)

Could features writing point a way to the future? I hasten to add that I mean an approach to features writing that transcends People Magazine-style happy talk, or the kind of art-as-business reportage that offers no consideration of art as art. (“Palookaville Philharmonic Ends Season $273.81 in Debt, Plans Bake Sale”) Sometimes I try to imagine a hybrid, combining the feature, the review and what’s often called the “think piece.”

I suppose this blurring of categories would be considered heresy in some circles – and I certainly haven’t figured out just how it would work. But I’m curious to know what people on both sides of the Atlantic think of this idea. Is this a direction that music writing can/should/will take? Is it already headed in this direction?

Colin Eatock

But Dan's contributions to our coverage show that this model (separation of criticism and reporting) can work if a paper is willing to commit its resources to it. I obviously can't answer for other papers interest or ability to do this, but any reporter on any beat has to learn the field.

Before Dan, we had some very good coverage of the institutions from Robin Pogrebin and other general culture reporters; again, if they felt thrown in at the deep end of a particular story, or wanted a reality check, all they had to do was call us. On a story by story basis, it's easy enough to give someone their bearings. They don't have to assimilate the secrets of the music world all at once.

I did our music reporting for a while, and while I have colleagues who absolutely love going after stories about the business side of the music world, I found it kind of tedious. I'm talking about strikes and budgets and financial crises and hirings and firings and management and nuts and bolts -- stories that, once you're written 10 of them, are the same with just the names and numbers changed, and in any case, are business reporting, not music writing.

My interest -- the reason I got into this -- is in writing about music and how it's made. The seamy underside of the music business, how it runs, and the creatures who run it -- let me put it this way: I read about these things because it's my job to know about it, but if I were "merely a reader," I'd read the reviews, because I want to know who's playing what, and how they're playing; and I'd read the profiles, because I want to know what people who make music have to say for themselves, but the business stuff -- nah. Not to disparage those who write this coverage or who like reading it. It just not the part of musical life that interests me.

I should add that this view not only doesn't represent the institutional view of my paper, but is markedly out of step with it. Howell Raines, during his brief and unhappy editorship, decided that what's interesting about culture is the money it generates, and he set about making the culture department a vassal of the business desk. That has been reversed to some extent, because the culture desk has editors who are sincerely interested in (and knowlegeable about) culture as culture, rather than culture as business. But business watching is definitely a part of the mandate, and it's here to stay.

About Baltimore: Yeah, I think it was calculated. OBVIOUSLY it was calculated: they went out of their way to leak the story, and even if part of it got away from them (the player rebellion), I think they saw/see that as all well and good, because like many institutions, they probably regard the measure of the column inches as the main issue. Moreover, they got enough ink -- and within it, sufficient praise of both the orchestra and Ms. Alsop -- to assure themselves that the Baltimore Symphony is a certified big deal, an orchestra whose goings-on are worthy of extensive national news coverage. I don't think they would regard this as a "minor media pop" at all, and I doubt they would agree that they have come off looking incompetent or disrespectful of their musicians: they had a majority vote, they claimed a sense of urgency, and in the end the musicians said they would fall into step, and in the end, if Ms. Alsop does well, all the negative stuff will fade away just as it does EVERY time there's a strike or protracted negotiations, with all their attendant weeks of coverage and extreme nastiness. Case(s)in point -- when you think of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic or the New York City Opera, what comes to mind? Is the musicmaking those institutions do, or do you still think much about the recriminations they and their managements hurled at each other daily during their most recent labor disputes?

And as a bonus, the orchestra knows that everyone will tune in again in three years, when Ms. Alsop's first contract is up for renewal.

See?

But on to your other point: Do you really think the Baltimore Symphony plotted the coverage this week so they'd get more attention? Yes, one might make the point that Marin Alsop would have a tougher time because of these stories, but isn't it really the Orchestra itself that comes off the worse?

From the outside the orchestra looks inept at best, and calculating and disrespectful to its musicians at worst. Surely the orchestra has damaged its position with its musicians in the process, and with its dirty laundry on display for all, it can't be the kind of positive image the orchestra wants to portray in the community. If it was orchestrated (no pun intended) it was a pretty bush-league strategy and surely not worth it for the minor media pop.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about the Baltimore story and how it's played out, because I think, basically, that we (all of us) have been spun.

The first stories appeared, before the board vote, because the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra deliberately leaked it. And they deliberately leaked it because they know that we prefer being able to give the impression of journalistic derring-do, rather than simply printing a handout, which is what the formal announcement would have been. Granted, the plain announcement would have had some play for a number of reasons -- first woman to get a post at that level, and a young(ish) American, etc. But by leaking, the Baltimore Symphony guaranteed themselves at least two stories, reported at a national level, rather than one: the "it's going to happen" story, and then the confirmation once the board voted.

Whether they counted on the orchestra rebellion (and they may have: surely they knew how the 7 orchestra members on the committee felt) is a moot point: the board was going to vote as it did anyway, but the orchestra rebellion stories simply kept the Baltimore Symphony in the news for all the intervening days between the "leak" and the announcement. Brilliant. One could argue that Marin Alsop may have been damaged here and/or the orchestra looked bad -- but not really. All the stories included considerable praise of her talents, and characterized the orchestra itself as quite good. Once things settle down, those are the things that will be remembered principally.

So really, this was all a brilliantly orchestrated publicity stunt. I'm not saying we should have covered it differently. We couldn't have, really: we had to cover it as it unfolded -- that's the deal, that's the job. But we should be aware that we've been manipulated.

I just thought I'd inject a cynical note here so that Norman doesn't have to do all the work himself.

But I think this is an example that belies Peter's earlier point about separating the functions of critic and reporter. The reason the reporting on this story has been interesting is because it is being written about by people who have a good sense of the context and can speculate. I wonder if a reporter or feature writer would do as well.

I appreciate the difficulty of mixing the roles, but the trade off seems worth it if the intent is to explain what's going on. Also, doesn't covering the world the music exists in in addition to the music itself give both the critic side and the reporter side the kind of broader perspective we were talking about earlier?