Something nice

Something wonderful in Andrew Druckenbrod’s

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07035/758706-42.stm">piece on applause…and

no, not simply what he and various Pittsburgh Symphony musicians say about how people

in the audience should feel free to clap between movements. And maybe even

during the music.

No, what struck me even more was Andy’s many links to

musical examples, which bring to life so many things he talks about. He even

includes both live and studio recordings of “Un

class=SpellE>bel di,” from

style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Madama Butterfly, to show what happens when people applaud over

the orchestral postlude.

And this is his idea. It’s not a Post-Gazette policy, but rather something Andy does on his own,

because he thinks — and of course he’s right — that it’s helpful to his

readers. Note that it’s a fair amount of extra work (as I know very well,

because I’ve put music online myself). But he does it anyway. Give him the hero

of the day award, for making online music writing far more vivid. And no, I don’t

think he’s the only person doing this, but he might be the only newspaper

critic doing it regularly with online versions of his published pieces.

If anybody else does it regularly, please let me know, and

you’ll get a hero of the day award, too!

(Full disclosure. Andy once wrote a

very friendly profile of me. But I’d praise anyone who did what he’s doing. And

in fact I found out about, not from him — and not even from the

class=SpellE>ArtsJournal link — but because one of my students e-mailed

me about the piece because of what it said about applause.)