PRESENT(S) LAUGHTER

I see that jfl takes me to task about my comment concerning having to have 35 years of music through your ears before making comment. I know that when I was writing for Records and Recordings in the early 1980s – when I was in my late 20s – I wasn’t really prepared for the job, but what really made me make the comment was what I have seen in concert halls this year. I suppose that it must be the rise of the internet review sites which has brought about this situation. I often find myself sitting next to very, very, young people who have come to the concert to report on it. What made me think of my comment was that at a certain concert (I mention no names so as to protect the innocents) I was seated next to a young person who was terribly eager to get it right – he prepared his notepad, wrote the title of the first piece to be played at the top of the page, and copied some pieces from the programme. Then came the music. He filled several pages of his book, prefacing every comment he wrote with the time, as follows:

7.35 nice flute tune
7.38 violins play tune
7.42 trumpet fanfare
7.44 timpani roll

and so on.

After the interval the main work played for about 60 minutes and he filled even more pages with the same kind of thing. It stared me wondering exactly what he had culled from the music and how he would create his piece. I asked him for whom he was writing and I checked his piece. Suffice it to say that it made no sense whatsoever because he had no idea what he had heard – performance or composition – and it was embarrassing.

You might think me elitist or just plain unforgiving but surely the public deserves better than this.

Certainly some people are more than capable of writing intelligently without the 35 years but many more aren’t, and I certainly don’t denigrate the people jfl names but I feel that these are more likely the exception to the rule. Perhaps I am wrong, but there is some very poor stuff out there. I know several composers – and not the younger ones either – who feel that criticism is too uninformed these days, and it’s not bad feeling on their part.

Of course, if you want to read really badly written comment, try almost any writing about rock music, and remember, there will always be someone out there who thinks that you have no idea, so you cannot win anyway.

I’m rather more bothered, at the moment, about what I am going to buy my daughter for her birthday (19 December) and Christmas a week later. What do you buy a 22 year old woman? Make–up? Well I’m against make-up because my mum wore far too much and I always thought that it made her look terrible. So that’s out. A book? Nice idea but I deal in books and it’s far too easy – unless it’s a rare edition of something tasty. But that’s unlikely – the really interesting stuff doesn’t turn up just when you want it to. She’s into Marilyn Monroe but after buying her an Andy Warhol Pink Marilyn last year I am against Norma Jean this year. And I have to buy a new front door. Yes, you read that correctly. You see, earlier this year, because I suffer from an unfortunate illness, I was taken ill during a concert at the Wigmore Hall and after managing to get home I passed out and was unconscious for two days before my ex-wife found me. Recently, when I failed to arrive at a friends house she ‘phoned the police telling them this story and the boys in blue turned up at my home – complete with ambulance – and, because I was out, they took the enforcer to my front door and broke in. The poor boys had to wait three hours until I got back. Oh how we laughed! The tears followed later when I discovered exactly how much a steel reinforced door costs! So what’s a good present for a father with a door problem to give to his daughter?