Edward Ortiz is at it again, this time reviewing a new disc by pianist Simone Dinnerstein. And, as usual, a couple of things caught my eye as, well, awkward, to say the least.
First, there’s the unsubstantiated adverb and adjective.
On Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 110, Dinnerstein powerfully connects with some of Beethoven's forward-looking ideas.
What exactly are those “forward-looking ideas?” How does one powerfully connect with said ideas? Who knows? Not me. “When typing, I powerfully connect with Henry Mill’s forward-looking ideas.” I bet you don’t know who Henry Mill is. Anyway, moving on.
Second, there’s the vagueness.
To do so, she honors the telling pauses in the first and second movements, and fronts the hyperkinetic moments throughout.
WTF, my friends? WTF? You all know me by now, so I don’t have to go into it. Let’s just agree that it’s humorously terrible, shall we? Good.
Okay, we have some vacuous language. What of it? Is it post-worthy? Meh. Not sure. I debated it’s merits for a spell, while listening to, guess what, Beethoven’s Opus 110. And wouldn’t you believe it, something sounded awkward, too! It’s just that I couldn’t pinpoint the problem.
Later on in my eventful day, I hopped on over to the Wall Street Journal, where there was, fortuitously enough, another review of the same disc, this time by Barbara Jepson.
The final movement of Beethoven's transcendent Sonata No. 32 in C Minor (Opus 111) is a series of variations on a 16-bar theme presented in its stately opening.
Are you fucking kidding me? Our Eddie-boy got the piece mixed up; it’s opus 111, not opus 110!
What gets me is that, unless he was using the number pad on his keyboard--it's possible, but very key stroke inefficient--1 and 0 are nowhere near each other, meaning three things. Either he thought the piece was, indeed, opus 110—which doesn’t have any pauses in order to be telling—or he didn’t bother to check which piece he actually heard—which could be considered terribly unprofessional (I’m not suggesting this is what actually happened)—or he doesn’t know his Beethoven (How is that even possible?). Which one is the real answer?
All I know is that even the editor didn’t catch the fuck up. So, I guess the editor fucked up, too.
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8/26/08
Keyboard Stroke?
Posted by Empiricus at 10:10 PM
Labels: Barbara Jepson, Beethoven, Berlin, Edward Ortiz, Everybody Knows Beethoven, Sacramento Bee, Simone Dinnerstein, Wall Strret Journal
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3 comments:
Well, in the world of foppish classical music worship, getting the opus number wrong is an unforgivable offense. It's akin to not knowing Lotte Lehman's transcendent performance as Sieglinde in the groin-grabbingly awesome recording of Die Walkure from 1935 by the ambulatory and corporeal Vienna Philharmonic and the always punctual Bruno Walter. The scrum-diddily-umptious high A in Act II is the zenith of all music in the history of the world -- EVER! But only in this recording...in other recordings its merely some low-lying base camp at mount that is classical music.
And Henry Mill -- well he either invented the typewriter, or he's a male prostitute.
Holy shit.
Oh why, oh why, aren't you the music critic for your local paper?
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