I wonder how often reviewers - whether professional or not - receive comments on their reviews from artists, whose recordings they have written about.
A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a Dutch singer. Apparently searching on the internet for comments on his activities he found my personal review site (www.musica-dei-donum.net) which contains a review of a recording of Bach's St John Passion he was involved in. The review was written in 2002, so why should someone bother about a review of so many years ago? Or about any review?
The review was pretty negative, and he didn't challenge my judgement. In fact, he acknowledged that the recording was rather awful, and he didn't like to be reminded of his participation in it. The most amazing part of his message was that he asked me to remove that review as he was afraid people searching the internet to find information about him would find that review. He really thought that would harm his chances of being invited for concerts and recording projects.
I was and still am pretty amazed by this. I never thought artists really cared about reviews. After all, sometimes the assessments of the reviewers are so different that one wonders whether they have listened to the same disc.
But I also can't believe a singer really thinks agents, conductors, opera houses etc base their invitations of singers on the judgement of reviewers on the internet. If they do, they are doing a pretty bad job. And I also don't think anybody will ever base his judgement on a review of six years ago. My correspondent argued he is a much better singer now - and that is true, as I have been able to observe myself.
No need to say that I politely refused to remove the review. It may not be available anymore from the label which released it, but as far as I know it is still circulating in second-hand shops etc. So there is still reason to warn people that what they think is a real bargain is in fact a stinker.
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The smaller the singer, the more a review matters. Or at least the more they think a review matters. Consequently they care.
ReplyDeleteAs the internet becomes more and more important in the reviewing/criticism business (you can tell since artists are now stuffing their bios with quotes taken from reviews that never appeared anywhere in print), they might be right... more-so as it becomes difficult to distinguish who is a bona-fide critic on the net, and who a hack with an opinion. :-)
Len replies: I do occasionally receive requests for the removal of reviews. I usually refuse on the basis that if I were to do so the site would end up only bearing favourable reviews. I refer back to the reviewer as well in case it is felt any alteration or footnote might be reasonable. Quite often the request or any other comments made is pasted to the bottom of the review. Sometimes comments recieved are so outlandish that they too are pasted to the bottom of the review. There has been one of those today where I thought the comments showed a completely distorted view of the review.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/Dec08/lefebure_SOCD238.htm
However in 2002 we were asked to remove a review and refused and the artists, or some one working on their behalf, bombarded the site with page download requests that went on continuously for days. It was tracked back to a University computer in the States but no way was found of getting it stopped. It did not stop visitors viewing the site but it caused us to vastly exceed our download limits that would have led to penalty charges from our then ISP, Force9. So the review was eventually removed from the server. However I did not remove it from my hard disc. When we moved to a new provider (Vavo.com long buried in the dust of the dot.com crash) I uploaded afresh to their server and the review reappeared. It was not long before they were e-mailing me again.
The disc in question was Catgut Flambo http://www.msrcd.com/Catgut/catgut.htm
Although the review no longer exists on my hard disc I have found it on an old backup:
When I received this disc it was accompanied by three pages of information about the guitar duo Guitar x 2. Page 1 being a very pleasant letter from Pasqual Bianculli (one half of the duo), Page 2 being a news release given over to a description of their musical prowess using adjectives such as "interpretative beauty", "colourful and rich in textures". The remaining page was a review from Fanfare September/October 1999 by Raymond Tuttle, who was equally enthusiastic about this first release by Guitar x 2, although he gives us the rather worrying invitation to "imagine a Brazilian jig danced by brothers with odd numbers of legs" (I leave it to the reader to imagine that), a reference to Paulo Bellinati's "Jongo".
The inlay of the disc itself bristles with glowing references of qualifications and faculty positions held by each of the guitarists. So I assume from this profile presentation that Guitar x 2 are professional musicians and can only base my opinions on this assumption for I am afraid this is one of the most disappointing discs of duet playing I have heard. I have played and performed a number of these works myself and am aware of the technical difficulties that can be encountered in them. Guitar x 2 make it obvious that they are on the edge of their techniques, so that even basics like keeping time and rhythm wander whenever any degree of difficulty arises; all too often their ensemble is just not together. Guitar x 2 claim to have been playing together as a duo for 25 years! This is hard to believe given the evidence of their playing of the baroque, classical and Spanish romantic music on this disc, though I must admit they do sound happier with the Brazilian pieces, but even here I feel they are too ambitious to sound convincing.
I have in my possession of number of recordings of amateur guitar ensembles who would not even consider having their efforts aired publicly on a commercially available CD and yet their standard of playing, general musicality and attention to detail equals if not at times exceeds that of Guitar x 2 who at best attempt to mould the music to their own limitations.
Andy Daly