Inconthievable!

Why do you keep saying that? I do not think it means what you think it means.

When pianist Yefim Bronfman steps onto the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage Thursday night for the first of four consecutive concerts with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the moment will be weighted with musical history.

...as with everything ever done by every musician ever. Except musicians from Xiglot-2—they have no short nor long-term memory formation capacity. I feel for them, but they don’t know what they’re missing. (By the way, that would be some odd music!)

Nonetheless, I’m curious, David Mermelstein: Since when have “moments” supplanted “events?” For me, it’s rather disturbing. If you’ve seen any baseball this season, you’d have seen this transformation take place as clear as day. Take, for instance, the All-Star Game, to name one. Part of the pre-game ceremonies had a number of Hall-of-Famers introduced, by position, at which time they ran onto the field. It was kind of a gigantic self-masturbation for baseball fans who probably remember some things, especially pertaining to baseball history. What threw me for a loop was the sportscasters’ proclamations that it was an historic “moment,” (not to mention the pre-pre-game shows’ proclamations that said it "will be” an historic moment) as if it were (or will be) one, lonely instant on the time continuum, like all the HOFers suddenly appeared on field, and that was a historic “moment,” then they disappeared.

See, as I understand it, time is experienced in a roughly linear fashion (don’t get me started about how the brain tends to fill in missing gaps of memory and how it often rearranges bits of information on the timeline). So, if moments in a continuum are the carriers of historical weight, exactly which moment of the “first of four consecutive concerts with Esa-Pekka,” will be weighted by history, in your estimation? Don’t you mean “event?”

No. That would be too easy.

And that's saying something for a man who was a protégé of Isaac Stern, studied with Rudolf Serkin and Leon Fleisher, roomed with Yo-Yo Ma and made his first major orchestral appearances in the U.S. under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.

Those performances were when Bronfman was 18. Now, at 50, he is famous throughout the world.

Yes. A lot of historical baggage, weighing down everything he does.

But the Philharmonic concerts, at which he will perform Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, will be his last Disney Hall dates with Salonen as the orchestra's music director.

So that’s why it’s significant. Guffaw! That’s like saying, “A moment of George Bush’s fourth-to-last day in office will be weighted down by history, because it will be the fourth-to-last day he will have Dick Cheney as his vice-president.” While technically correct, the significance lies elsewhere, namely, the fourth-to-last day, not a particular moment from that day. See? And the significance of that fourth-to-last day is rather dubious, too.

Remember Peter Serkin’s last concert series with Seiji Ozawa in Boston? Me neither. Thankfully, you’ll be able to see them together again in Boston this November 28th.

So much for historically weighted last moments and stuff. Can't wait for their second "fourth-to-last" performance together five years from now, too.
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Knocking It Off

Pianist Gloria Cheng recently released a recording of newish music on the Telarc label, which included a few pieces by Esa-Pekka Salonen, the composer. And of course, there’s a bevy of reviews.

However, rather than attack these one by one, I thought it would be fun to stream together some of what was written about the works, because...shit...I’m more confused now than before I read them. See if you feel the same way after this short survey of the Salonen.

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[Cheng] plays music by three composers on the CD. What about Salonen?

An apt question, if I do say so. Let’s get going!

[...] Salonen’s pieces have their turn to enchant and seduce the ear, with their shimmering filigree, streams of notes, and often-gentle aura.

Ms. Cheng on the Salonen:

“The earliest work, Yta II (1985), takes its title from the Swedish word for surface. He’s written a series of three Yta s for different instruments, written mostly in the 1980s for friends while he was still based in Finland. He writes in his notes about how surfaces, for a Finn, are often snow-covered and can appear either blurry as in a blizzard, or clean and sparkling as in ice. That imagery appears in the music. I also find a great deal of humor in Yta II , and can’t help but imagine a high-strung little creature that goes through a transformation into something rich and beautiful by the end of the piece.”

Mr. Salonen's ''Yta II'' (1985) is a seven-minute whirlwind of hyperfast riffs and runs that spiral across the keyboard.

The deft Philharmonic soloist punches out the Finn’s übervirtuoso writing as if it were “Chopsticks.”

Imagine an atonal Art Tatum.

Art Tatum, snowflakes and a little metamorphosizing, high-strung creature.* Got it.

Ms. Cheng, again:

“Dichotomie, the major piece by Salonen on this disc, was composed in 1999–2000. The first movement, ‘Mécanisme,’ is just a romp, and I’ve confided to Esa-Pekka that I find this movement to be all about misbehaving (laughter). It’s like a kid who insists on jumping on the bed and making all sorts of trouble, but every so often has to come back and behave, and does so with passages of great eloquence.”

Mécanisme also...

[...] has a vigorous, toccata-like opening, with transient “robotic” tendencies that alternate with a definite dance-like esprit.

Sometimes eloquently dancing robots misbehaving vigorously. Check.

Also, also wik:

Mr. Salonen's ''Dichotomie'' (2000), a fearsomely difficult work, begins like some fractured Finnish avant-garde update of Stravinsky's ''Petrouchka'' with oscillating chords and relentless, headily dissonant repetitions.

The second movement of Dichotomie, entitled ‘Organisme,’ was conceived with the metaphor of a young willow in mind, a tree that bends in the wind. The sensibility of that movement is very French.

Finnish interpretation of France and their trees. Yes.

“Organisme,” showcases prickly, experimental rhythmic patterns that steer in the direction of a Cecil Taylor lesson in free jazz.

Art Tatum plus one free lesson from Cecil Taylor. Check.

The exuberant second movement climaxes in fitful bursts of leaping cluster chords and shimmering glissandos for both hands.

There are three preludes, too.

In the first prelude, “Libellula meccanica,” a mechanical dragonfly lazily drifts on a hazy summer’s day before darting hither and yon with more vigor. The steady rhythmic motion of the second prelude, “Chorale,” seems to grow out of the even pacing of traditional chorales but also has its quicker moments.

It also has quicker moments. Well said.

And now for something completely Ms. Cheng, again:

“[...] the last of the three, ‘Invenzione a due voci,’ is the hardest piece I’ve ever laid eyes on, with two independent lines that are parallel, and yet not, unrelenting, gnarly, and requiring a sound that is completely effortless and relaxed.”

“For a two-minute piece, it’s a huge challenge for the pianist.” Reflecting on her superb performance, [Robert Schulplaper] commented that however daunting its appearance, it’s obviously playable. “But almost impossible. Of course, some 14-year-old will come along and just knock this stuff off.”

It’s so difficult that some 14 year-old can knock it off? Don’t you mean, “tear it up,” “bang it out” and other appropriate clichés? Or did you really mean this: Urban Dictionary?

The French influence, which was clearly Ravelian in the Lutoslawski, is in Salonen’s works, as in Stucky’s, less definable, but perhaps no less real.

?

Comma, confusion!

[Robert Schulslaper] could invoke the usual clichés—clarity and elegance, Ravel’s lapidary technique, Debussy’s artful portrayals of natural phenomena, as well as Messiaen’s bird portraits—and indeed they apply. But the best way to appreciate where Salonen, Stucky, and Lutoslawski fit into the French continuum is to listen to their music.

The works by Salonen [...] encapsulate the emergence of a compositional wisdom.

But how has that compositional wisdom manifested itself?

In an April talk-back session at Symphony Center, Salonen addressed the question of whether living in America influenced his writing: “If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be alive,” he said.

Sheesh.

Well, consider him mystically undead. This mostly Frenchy-Euro [edit: Frenchy-Euro-American] modernist fare calls to mind the nascent music breeding ground of early-20th-century Paris.

Much of this piano music feels nostalgic, referential and pastichelike, rather than something wholly new. But that’s not a knock; as Jean Cocteau asked, “Doesn’t all good music resemble something?”

Only a Sith deals in absolutes, Cocteau.

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*What I learned about Esa-Pekka’s music today:

Art Tatum, snowflakes and a little metamorphosizing, high-strung creature.
Sometimes eloquently dancing robots misbehaving vigorously.
Finnish interpretation of France and their trees.
One free lesson from Cecil Taylor.
It also has quicker moments.
It’s so difficult that some 14 year-old can knock it off [sic].
Cocteau was a Sith Lord.

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Links to the reviews at: Time Out Chicago, Fanfare Magazine, ArkivMusic.com, NY Times, soiveheard.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Review

I have nothing but angry, rage-filled, contemptuous, derogatory words for this pile of ignorance and self-righteousness, this loathsome, pea-brained, and (yes) uneducated attempt to...

...Whoa there!! Calm down, Empiricus.

(deep breath) You’re right. I was about to lose it. Thanks.

Don’t mention it.

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Let’s start over. But this time, try to say something nice every time David Hurwitz makes you mad.

Sure, I’ll try to say something nice every time David Hurwitz pisses me off to the point where I very nearly jump up, run out to the shed and fire up the chainsaw so I can...

...Cool it, you!

(deep breath) Thanks again, Empiricus.

Let’s give this a try, shall we?

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Schoenberg's 12-tone music...

Good work, so far, David!

Oh, now you’re just being silly. Just try to be nice. Okay?

Okay.

Schoenberg's 12-tone music has the undeserved reputation of being unusually difficult, at least to the extent that his tonal music is, if anything, just as knotty and uncompromising.

(pauses, thinks) Such things have been said before. (takes deep breath) Whether or not they're true...well. Good start, anyway.

Not bad, Empiricus. Keep going.

Even so...

That is synonymous with, “despite that fact.”

See, Empiricus? I haven’t said anything bad.

Good work.

I know. I'm cool like that.

Even so, the Violin Concerto is notorious for standing among the ugliest pieces of music ever conceived by the human mind...

(stares in disbelief) David has...(deep breath)...a right to...say things. (looks for stress ball)

Very good, Empiricus. Go on.

...but below the surface there's a lot of brilliant and (yes) expressive invention going on.

I might say that they’re also on the surface. Either way, that’s a kind of compliment, David.

How’d I do, Empiricus?

You’re doing well. Let’s see if you can keep it up!

I’ll try.

The only question is how hard you, the listener, feel like working, and how much the performance rewards your time and effort.

(Deep breath. Deep breath. Deep Breath)

Stay focused, Empiricus.

(Deep breath)

Let’s just move on. Shall we?

(Deep breath)

The first recording that "did it" for me was the Craft/Schulte version on Koch; but this one is even finer...

I’m glad you...liked the recording...?

...and not just because it knocks about four minutes off the overall timing of the piece.

Fff...!!

Hold it right there partner! Let’s take a breather. Go have a smoke.

Yeah. I need a smoke.

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(5 minutes later)

If you're just taking the plunge, start with the finale.

Oh, come on you can’t seriously...

(sternly) Empiricus!

(sarcastically) I hope David tells us why we should start in the middle of the piece. I-am-all-ears.

That’s more like it, buster!

It contains several memorable tunes and motives that recur with relative frequency, in a clear march rhythm.

From what I have read of your stuff before, David (deep breath), these are things that make for good pieces. Thanks for clearing that up. I’ll (gulp) go straight to the final movement.

I’m impressed, Empiricus!

I’m still trying, anyway.

It's not just that Hahn has mastered the work technically, but she also uses her command of the notes to create feeling.

"She created feeling” sounds like...(rolls eyes)...a good assessment.

Calm. Remember to stay calm.

Mmm-hmm.

Thus, Schoenberg marks the opening of the slow movement "grazioso"...

Wait a goddamned minute! "Thus!" Thus! How on Earth does Schoenberg’s marking follow Hilary Hahn’s playing!

Time out, mister! Go have another smoke.

(pouts, mutters to self)

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(5 minutes later)

Ready to try this again?

(pouting) Yes.

Thus, Schoenberg marks the opening of the slow movement "grazioso", and at first you think he must be kidding...

(long pause) Grazioso means “gracefully.”

...but Hahn and Salonen [the conductor] deliver the expressive goods.

(rolls eyes) I am glad they expressed feelings. (deep breath) That's a sign of a quality recording.

Very good, Empiricus. You’re making me proud.

I’m doing my very best.

I hesitated before giving this disc a top recommendation, if only because no matter how fine the performances are...

What the f...

Calm!

(deep breath) David, I’m sure you had a good reason to ignore your mandate. I can’t wait to hear it.

That’s not entirely nice, Empiricus.

It’s not entirely mean, either, Empiricus. Just calling it like I see it.

I hesitated before giving this disc a top recommendation, if only because no matter how fine the performances are, I don't want to give the misleading impression that on hearing the Schoenberg those resistant to the idiom will suddenly have some sort of 12-tone epiphany.

That’s fucking stupid ass-backw!!!

No! No! No! Stop! We’re done here. Go to your room.

Nothing more to see, folks. Good night! Go read this, instead. You'll enjoy yourself more.
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Parting Shots: Not so "so long," after all

Dear Detritusites, I need to ask you a big favor, well, two favors: One, please be patient, this is a long ‘un. But most importantly, two, would you please hold your anger-filled comments and death-threats until the end? This might sting a bit, but, if you can accept for a moment that I may not be entirely crazy, then this will be easier on all of us. Besides, if, by the end, you still feel the need to tear me a new one and shove a fistful of wadded-up Lachenmann scores in the open wound, by all means, go ahead. It’s your right, and I’ll take it with a grin on my face. Now, you could be asking yourselves, what could be so bad that Empiricus felt he needed to issue a disclaimer? Well, people, I’m going to throw-down with Alan Rich.

As you may or may not know, Alan’s post as classical music critic at the L.A.Weekly has been terminated. And this is his last entry at that post (though he’ll remain there, albeit in a limited role).

Parting Shots

I must say, at the onset, that we have not gone after his work, until now, because it is utterly stupendous. Aside from his keen knowledge and ear, his prose is gorgeous. Here, he puts his brilliant knack for imagery and insinuation into motion right away.

Helmut Lachenmann cuts a solitary figure in today’s musical world. At a time when much of the talk centers on accessibility, on a generation of composer-heroes — Adams, Adès, Reich, Saariaho, Salonen, just for starters — who have found ways to reach out to audiences with serious and imaginative creativity, that old notion of the composer on his private Olympus, proudly and defiantly cloaked in his mantle of inscrutability, rests almost solely with this tall, gaunt yet smiling German gent whose music ground its way through Zipper Concert Hall last Monday.

That’s ridiculously clever, maybe even poetic. However, what lies beneath this elegant prose—which, by the way, sets up the rest of the review perfectly—is almost pure anti-modernist venom, couched in populist (?) idealism. To get a better sense of what I mean, let’s take a closer look.

At a time when much of the talk centers on accessibility, on a generation of composer-heroes — Adams, Adès, Reich, Saariaho, Salonen, just for starters — who have found ways to reach out to audiences with serious and imaginative creativity...

He’s just setting up and defining the contrary, yet popular, point of view by naming Lachenmann’s aesthetic adversaries and their accomplishments. In fact, he’s hailing their accomplishments, while making clear that their work represents the present: “at a time when,” “composer-heroes.” This places Lachenmann, where?

...that old notion of the composer on his private Olympus, proudly and defiantly cloaked in his mantle of inscrutability, rests almost solely with this tall, gaunt yet smiling German gent...

Lachenmann is placed on Lonely Mountain, as it were. Or, as we’ve seen so many times before, in his own selfish, ivory tower. But he’s placed there as a relic (“old notion,” “gaunt”), happy to swim upstream. He’s seen as the last of a dying breed (“old notion...rests almost solely”).

Put all of it together we come up with something like this, which sounds a lot like someone else we’ve dealt with before: Lachenmann is an old-school, aloof, who-gives-a-shit-about-comprehensibility kind of composer-God, who doesn’t care about pleasing his audience, unlike “Adams, Adès, Reich, Saariaho, Salonen, just for starters,” who, by the way, are heroes. Salonen, really?

And also, apparently, good riddance, Lachenmann! (I read ahead)

Okay so far?

Well, no. I’m not okay. BEGIN STUPID RANT STOP Accessibility in music means popularity. If that was, indeed, the penultimate goal, then every composer would be imitating this guy. And the only things you get by imitating that guy, besides money and paparazzi, is awards. I mean, where are these composers now? Where is their music being performed? Are these popular Pultizer Prize winners in the canon?: Douglas Stuart Moore, Gail Kubic, John la Montaine, Robert Ward, Leslie Bassett, Richard Wernick, Stephen Albert (Seriously, Google them. YouTube them. Did you find anything? Any music?) What did popularity ever do for them? END STUPID RANT HERE STOP

Okay so far?

Yes, I suppose I’m a little better. Thanks. I needed to get that off my chest. Anyway... you know what? No. Come to think of it, no, I’m not better, because this tripe continues.

“He is the world’s greatest composer,” proclaim a few holdouts in the new-music community who dote on inscrutability.

Unpopular Lachenmann fan = doter on inscrutability. Great. Thanks, Alan. Thanks for nothing. Way to avert the unfamiliar! Way to close your mind! Way to conform. Baaaaah!

At them in response, I fling my favorite James Thurber line: “ ‘He’s God!’ screamed a Plymouth Rock hen.”

For those of you not familiar with “The Owl Who Was God,” here you go. Note the “moral” of the story, near the bottom. (I love unintentionally ironic references)

Now, in defense of poor Helmut, I’ll lob over a favorite Morton Feldman quote: “The only fanatics I have ever met were conservative musicians.” Take that, conformists!

Yet the concert drew a large crowd, and there were many who stood and cheered at the end.

That’s an ordinary, reasonable response; people go to concerts they might enjoy. This, however, isn’t a reasonable response:

I would love to know what they heard.

And why is that? Take it away, Alan!

Prior to this concert, I knew Lachenmann mostly from the ECM recording of his setting — “opera” in the broadest sense — of the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Little Match Girl,” onto which he has hung the whole paraphernalia of his “fractured aesthetic” (Alex Ross’ term), culminating in a horrendous musical mishmash in which the ghosts of every composer in Lachenmann’s own scrapbook, Mahler, Berg, Stockhausen, Boulez, pass by simultaneously as if in some horrendous wet dream.

A game: Find the Epistrophe!

(Jeopardy theme music)

Find it? The answer is: "horrendous." By repeating horrendous twice with regards to one subject, he’s strongly emphasizing how Lachenmann’s opera is (list of possible synonyms) dreadful, awful, terrible, shocking, appalling, horrifying, horrific, horrid, hideous, grisly, ghastly, gruesome, gory, harrowing, heinous, vile, unspeakable, (takes breath), nightmarish, macabre, spine-chilling, blood-curdling, loathsome, monstrous, abhorrent, hateful, hellish, execrable, abominable, atrocious, sickening, foul, nasty, disagreeable—you get the idea.

But, why wasn’t that a reasonable response? Well, “just for starters,” if a newspaper is going to assign a critic to review a concert, it might be nice if they sent someone who has a general interest in the music to be played. It might also be nice to have a critic open to new possibilities, instead of one who can’t fathom alternate definitions of “opera,” in quotation marks (in quotation marks: in "quotation marks"). Also, also it might be nice if the reviewer was familiar with the music, you know, say the reviewer knew more than one piece by the composer. Just an idea. But who am I to question these things?

Does that lovely, sad Andersen story deserve that?

I didn’t know stories deserve things.

Do we?

To be fair, I don’t know that we deserve “horrendous wet dreams,” either.

Did we on Monday?

Hell no! Everyone is aware that we only deserve “horrendous wet dreams” on Tuesdays, and sometimes Fridays depending on the tide. Mondays are simply out of the question, what with the morning rush-hour commute and all!

But I digress, too. Go on, Alan. Spew more Lachenmann derision.

I had never before endured pain at a Monday Evening Concert; this time I did: pain and anger.

You can’t blame Lachenmann for the burritos you ate at lunch! Lachenmann + burritos = the runs.

The music by [...] Helmut Lachenmann reflected the nastiness dear to so many German and Austrian creative hearts these days.

Whoa! Where’d you come from? Who are you? Get out of here! Go. Get!

[...] Mr. Lachenmann's ''Movement (Before Paralysis)'' seemed almost to jeer at the easygoing spirit and borderline sentimentality of the [preceding] American pieces [...].

Shoo, I said! I mean it!

“Movement (Before Paralysis)” seems proud of its complications. Hard, angular, percussion-ridden, highly uneven in movement, this is the art of unease. Mr. Lachenmann produces wheezes, whines, shudders and whooshes that are sophistication itself.

Go on! Get out of here! And stay out! That's better.

“Played,” by the way, often consisted of blowing through only the mouthpiece of a wind instrument, banging on the case of a piano, delivering frenzied blasts through a brass instrument and otherwise violating the customary sound possibilities of various instruments.

But that’s not new. However, saying that Lachenmann rapes the instruments is new; that’s a new one on me, anyway.

Such procedures are not new,

See.

and they have a certain joke value the first time around.

Odd, but not necessarily new, procedures = a joke, the first time around. Just like sul ponticello, right?

The Lachenmann works were long enough to allow these things to happen several times, and you all know what happens to a joke when you tell it more than once.

It gets old. I got it. You were clear about tha...

Hold it. (sniffs the air for a cheesy taint)

Mr. Rich, sir. Are you saying that...(thinks... “grmphblhpt”)...I don’t know what you’re saying. See, if you’re saying that novel sounds are a joke, but lose their comic luster (?) when repeated, then... I mean, if you’re saying that odd instrumentations, which may not be new, are funny, except when they’re reiterated, which makes them bad things, then...

I’m confused. Let’s go backwards.

These things I can grasp and accept: Lachenmann is not popular. You don’t like his music. Presumably, you do like Adams, Reich, etc. (Salonen, hmmm). They are (more) popular/accessible.

But, therefore...? Lachenmann is a joke? Because he’s not accessible? Because he utilizes odd sounds? Because he’s a modernist? Because his music causes the runs?

There’s a “parting shot,” indeed. (super-slow fade to black)

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If this had been an actual meta-critique, this is how it might have gone. But, fortunately for Alan and a number of you, this is where your patience will be rewarded, because it was not a critique, per se—even though a lot of points stand—because, Alan, like I said at the beginning, is a fine, fine critic, a critic we’ve never before tried to tear apart. Then why go through all this rigmarole, Empiricus? Why parody yourself? So I could make obvious that there is almost no difference between Alan’s opinions and those of other critics, opinions that generally warrant a long, scathing Detritus-like whipping.

What’s the difference, then? Simple. First-person.

Listen, I don’t agree with anything, anything in this review (except maybe the part about Lachenmann being one of the last modernists). Let me just make that clear. Alan and I have polar opposite opinions. I don’t think that if we ran into one another at a concert, that we’d become BFFs.

But, because he uses the pronoun I to express himself, I can’t fault him. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And he’s calling it as he sees it. No disembodied, third-person generalizations vomited as objective truth. Just him, and his opinions.

I can’t fault Alan, but I can fault the newspaper higher-ups and whoever gave Alan that particular assignment. I think its pretty clear that Alan can’t stand Lachenmann’s music nor “ivory towerites.” Then why send him to review a Lachenmann/modernist concert? That makes no sense. “Let’s send ol’ Mel Gibson over to cover the bat mitzvah.” That doesn’t make any sense either. So why do it?
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Why the Detritus?

I enjoy Anne Midgette’s articles. She’s thoughtful. She’s articulate. She’s eloquent even—a nice fit with the venerable Washington Post. But today...

Somebody forgot to tell the violinist Hilary Hahn that Schoenberg is ugly.

This is, by far, the most disappointing thing I’ve ever read from a respectable, industrious, (how about) progressive critic. More importantly—because after all that was only my opinion—she crossed the boundary between impartiality and partiality. “Schoenberg is ugly” is declarative in the worst, most biased sense. This is something we expect from others, but not our Anne!

And now for something completely different:

The music of Arnold Schoenberg, of course, isn't ugly at all;

How can this be? She just said, “Schoenberg IS ugly.” I don’t get it. What kind of twisted negative rhetorical device is this?

(loud, pissed-off sigh)

Sorry. Well, I’m not sorry. No one gets to have it both ways. Either Schoenberg is or he isn’t. So, Anne, choose the form of the destructor.

in fact, he's one of the last of the romantics.

Let me understand this correctly. Schoenberg isn’t ugly, BECAUSE he’s a romantic composer; if he were a modernist, he’d be ugly. Is that really the direction you want to take this, Anne?

...

Fine.

Her new recording of the Schoenberg Violin Concerto on Deutsche Grammophon, released last month, shows no traces of the spiky, unpleasant angularity that represents Schoenberg in the popular consciousness.

You, Anne, and all critics are the everyday opinion-molders of the popular consciousness. Thus, Schoenberg’s reputation is your doing. You are the one(s) responsible for his unpleasantness. They are your descriptors.

I mean, listen, really listen, to what this says:

Both musicians [Esa-Pekka Salonen and Hahn] are smart enough not to get tied in knots by Schoenberg's score, and to see through it to the composer's inner romantic.

It says that the conductor and violinist smartly mined romanticism out of Schoenberg’s otherwise ugly, difficult, spiky, unpleasantly angular, dense, clotted, ferocious piece (all adjectives found previously within the article).

Do you now see how Schoenberg and modernism get their reputations? Reviews like this, which say, “Despite Schoenberg, the music is beautiful, because of the performers.” What kind of dismissive, backhanded logic forgets that the composer put those sounds, those romantic, angular notes, onto paper and not the performers? Apparently articles like these:

To sweeten the pill for non-initiates, Hahn pairs Schoenberg with Sibelius [...]

I am truly disgusted and disappointed, today. But, then again, this is why we are here: to defend good writing and trash the bad.

(By the way, I didn’t say “fuck” once, but I wanted to. Congrats Empiricus! Thank you.)
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