Give Em a Shot Across the Bow

When you say shit like this,

So much nontonal music contradicts itself by grafting a new language onto old sentence structure, creating Brahms with wrong notes.

...you had better be prepared to back it up, because I’ll come after you like stink on a cadaver.

So, my little scholar, back it up!

Not so Webern, whose musical grammar is as innovative as its vocabulary. The Variations here took on the shape of spoken conversation: question and answer, proposition and response, and the silences in between.

No. Bad. (rolls up the newspaper, swats) No.

Don’t think that I’ll let you evade responsibility, even if you praise Webern. Defend your stupid statement!

You might call him the Janacek of outer space.

As humorous as this may be, you don’t get a free pass. Give me examples, proof, anything that might convince me, the reader, that nontonal music contradicts anything; that Brahms is inherently complex; that the metaphor of music as language is apt; that wrong notes are bad!

Critics, you can’t just say shit and not be held responsible. If this was on the front page, Bernard Holland would be fired! As a reader, I have no sympathy for word counts or deadlines. No excuses, this is plain awful.
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