Poop is Always Brown

Apparently Jeremy Eichler and Matthew Guerrieri are on assignment, covering the intrigues of Julian Tavarez’s conspicuous iPod playlists, because the Boston Globe instead instructed David Perkins, correspondent, to cover Dubravka Tomsic’s piano concert at Jordan Hall.

This turned out to be an epic failure. Not because of awkward grammar, like this:

She played generously, long and beautifully.

but because of... how do I say this? Romantic arching? No. Sweeping arcs? No, but closer.

I know! Sweeping assumptions. Yes, that’s it. This is an epic failure, because of Perkins’s sweeping assumptions.

Here’s what I mean:

Often one wished for more imagination and searching.

Taken by itself, this is a perfectly fine thing to say—a criticism, or, if you prefer, an opinion. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from here, to put it lightly.

The Adagio in B minor, K. 540, of Mozart, for example, had everything one loves in great Mozart playing - a singing line, graceful phrasing, and the ability to weigh chords beautifully –

How can David wish for more imagination and searching—by the way, I find “searching” to be terribly ambiguous; on the other hand, I can define imagination with some accuracy—how can he wish for more imagination and searching when Tomsic’s playing “had everything one loves in great Mozart playing?” It is not possible. But...

...but it is a strangely repetitive work, and she did not vary the color or emphasis with each return of the main subject.

So. Because Tomsic “did not vary the color or emphasis with each return of the main subject,” David finds himself wishing for more imagination and searching.

The problem, here, is that... well here’s a definition of imagination:

The faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts (OAD)

She didn’t vary Mozart’s material, right? Right. That doesn’t sound imaginative at all.

But! But, David, by assuming what could have made her performance better, i.e., variation, he renders himself blind to other possibilities, such as no variation. Thus, his viewpoint is unimaginative, not Tomsic’s. In other words, by idealizing a performance of Mozart, he denies the existence, or possibility, of new interpretations, like little or no variation, which could be considered imaginative. See?

This is probably the most boring subject, I know. But we’re not entirely done with the sweeping. So wake up!

[In the Scarlatti] she did not underline, with artful rubato, the suspense of the wonderful harmonic shifts.

Similarly, David expects rubato in Scarlatti as if he formed himself an image of an idealized performance. Thus, again, he closed himself to the possibility of other, imaginative, interpretations.

Just saying, no one should make sweeping assumptions then immediately negate them.

And “wonderful harmonic shifts?” How about “imaginative harmonic shifts?”

Anyway, levity!

She fudged only a few notes, and there were a lot of notes.

Beethoven's "Appassionata" sonata is a favorite work she played on her first Boston recital 17 years ago.

It's a half-crazy piece, and Tomsic, while a great pianist, is not good at suffering.

Please come back soon, Jeremy and Matthew! We miss you.
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