by shostakovich » Mon Jan 29, 2001 8:31 pm
What a great name! It's what George Bernard Shaw used as music critic in London in 1888, 89. He used his own name from 1890 - 94. I recently came across an article by Henry Pleasants from a March 1968 HIFI/STEREO REVIEW on Shaw as critic. I was going to just pick out his commentary on Mozart because of recent topics in the bulletin board, but there's so much I want to quote. In the following, my commentary will be in [brackets], Pleasants' in lower case, and Shaw's in CAPITALS, so you'll know where they are coming from. <P>[Pleasants:] It is unlikely there will ever be another critic quite like him. The solemn approach to music and to criticism that is fashionable nowadays would not for long tolerate Shaw's congenital and determined irreverance. Nor would a musical community, today, fail to expose the gaps in his musical education or to challenge the propriety of such avowedly personal and biased opinions. Music criticism, in our time, is expected to combine respectability, objectivity, decorum, learning, and good citizenship. Given these qualifications, it is little wonder that most of it is also unconscionably dull. <P>[Shaw was not dull. A few quickies are:]<BR>D'ANDRADE TOOK THE GREATEST PAINS TO BE A FAILURE AS FIGARO,AND SUCCEEDED.<BR>MR. [William] WALLACE [a composer] KNOWS HOW TO USE EVERY INSTRUMENT EXCEPT THE SCISSORS.<BR>SHE [Lady Halle] TOOK THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF BEETHOVEN'S SEPTUOR AT ABOUT TWO-THIRDS OF THE LOWEST SPEED NEEDED TO SUSTAIN LIFE; AND THE OTHERS FOLLOWED HER FROM NOTE TO NOTE, AND THOUGHT OF OTHER THINGS.<P>[on Mozart]<BR>MOZART ---- WAS NO LEADER OF A NEW DEPARTURE OR FOUNDER OF A SCHOOL.HE CAME AT THE END OF A DEVELOPMENT, NOT AT THE BEGINNING OF ONE. ---- IN ART THE GREATEST SUCCESS IS TO BE THE LAST OF YOUR RACE, NOT THE FIRST. ANYBODY, ALMOST, CAN MAKE A BEGINNING: THE DIFFICULTY IS TO MAKE AN END, AND TO DO WHAT CAN NOT BE BETTERED.<P>[He was a champion of Wagner in the 1890s. He wrote a little book called The Perfect Wagnerite, in which he explained Wagner's Ring in unique fashion. In the 1930s he was tired of Wagner's music and the overblown music that followed. I'm assuming that means Richard Srauss, among others. This is from 1935.]<BR>THE FUNERAL MARCH FROM GOTTERDAMMERUNG HARDLY KEEPS MY ATTENTION ---- THE POST-WAGNERIAN HARMONIC AND CONTRAPUNTAL ANARCHY IS SO COMPLETE THAT IT IS EASIER, TECHNICALLY, TO COMPOSE ANOTHER PARSIFAL THAN ANOTHER MASS IN B MINOR OR DON GIOVANNI.<P>[on Italian opera]<BR>In Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, and the late Verdi he saw a rebirth of Italian opera, and in Puccini, who, at the time, had not got beyond Manon Lescaut, he found the man WHO LOOKS TO ME MORE LIKE THE HEIR OF VERDI THAN ANY OF HIS RIVALS. And he sized up Ponchielli correctly enough: IT WOULD HAVE BEEN KINDER, EVEN WHEN PONCHIELLI WAS ALIVE, TO TELL HIM FRANKLY THAT ALL HIS STRAINING AT THE BOW OF ULYSSES WAS NOT BENDING IT ONE INCH.<P>[a few other pot shots] <BR>Some of Shaw's other lapses cannot be written off as mere symptoms of virulent Wagneritis, least of all his dismissal of Schubert's Symphony in C as an EXASPERATINGLY BRAINLESS COMPOSITION. ----<BR>But he was rarely so far off. Few, today, would quarrel with his references to Mendelssohn's KID-GLOVE GENTILITY, CONVENTIONAL SENTIMENTALITY, AND DESPICABLE ORATORIO-MONGERING, or to Schumann's LABORIOUSNESS AND DEPENDENCE ON EXTERNAL POETIC STIMULUS. <P>[I was amused at a parody he used to take writers of program notes to task. He mocked program notes to a scene in Hamlet.]<BR>SHAKESPEARE, DISPENSING WITH THE CUSTOMARY EXORDIUM, ANNOUNCES HIS SUBJECT AT ONCE IN THE INFINITIVE [To be], IN WHICH MOOD IT IS PRESENTLY REPEATED AFTER A SHORT CONNECTING PASSAGE IN WHICH, BRIEF AS IT IS, WE RECOGNIZE THE ALTERNATIVE AND NEGATIVE FORMS ON WHICH SO MUCH OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF REPETITION DEPENDS [or not to be]. HERE WE REACH A COLON [:]; AND A POINTED POSITORY PHRASE, IN WHICH THE ACCENT FALLS DECISIVELY ON THE RELATIVE PRONOUN, BRINGS US TO THE FIRST FULL STOP [that is the question.]. <P>[I think Shaw's point in the above is to say you don't need program notes to enjoy a concert, but what a marvelous way to bring home the point.]<P>[I don't know how many people will get a kick out of the Shaw comments. There's a lot to think about, and a lot to argue with. Anyway, if you weren't impressed you'll know which topic not to come back to.<BR>Shos]<BR>
One reason I enjoy their kind of commentary is that they've already made a name for themselves though their writing, so having them apply it to c.m. is in a way a sort of celebrity endorsement or judgement.