“Music criticism is an art” is quite an intro.
Thus Max Stern opens the preface to his new book The Art of the Music Critic, a handsome tome that dips into seemingly every aspect of classical – and some other – music performance and recording.
Stern leaves no stone unturned as he enlightens us, inter alia, about concerts he attended and critiqued, historical and contemporary composers, liturgica, chamber and choral music, festivals, and events he attended at various spots around the globe.
The 77-year-old American-born Jerusalemite should know. He is a seasoned composer, conductor, musicologist, educator, and bass player, who served as The Jerusalem Post’s music critic for over three decades. In his book, he has even gone so far as to touch on the seemingly incongruous interface between music and politics, as well as addressing the delicate and emotive juxtaposition of music and the Holocaust.
A look at how to critique music
Stern’s long service at the Post forms the nucleus of The Art of the Music Critic. He neatly divides the book into themed chapters relating to a broad arc of formats, genres, disciplines, and events. The authenticity and, possibly, historical factor is underscored by the inclusion of scans of the reviews and columns as they appeared in the paper of the day.
As I perused the reviews, I got the impression of a critic who was not only in possession of all the requisite knowledge and skills, and then some. Stern clearly has a gift for looking at, and conveying, the bigger picture. As art feeds off life, as well as giving back and enriching our time on terra firma, that fits the existential bill.
That comes across palpably, for example, in Stern’s critique of a concert in Beersheba in early 1991, slap-bang in the middle of the First Gulf War.
In addition to proffering his learned impressions of readings of works by Villa Lobos, Mendelssohn, Mussorgsky, and Mozart, Stern embellishes his account with the real-life drama of a siren filtering through to the interior of the concert hall “with the strains of the orchestra’s rounded sonority and subtle rhythmic gestures still in the air” as a Scud missile landed somewhere in the vicinity.
THIS IS VERY much a cognoscente’s view of the world of music in these parts and, as such, offers the reader insights into the deeper seams of the Israeli music scene and its principal proponents.
His piece on Mendi Rodan in 1991, as the maestro leaves office after 14 years at the helm of the Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva, is based not only on Stern’s vast knowledge of the field; he also performed as a member of the ensemble under Rodan’s baton.
But this is not just a nostalgia-seasoned documentary summation of Stern’s 33 years of writing for the Post. All the clippings are augmented by his present-day hindsight on the events in question. That adds a lot to the reader’s appreciation of Stern’s work, as it formed, and his thinking and feelings about his subjects.
In addition to singing the outgoing conductor’s praise for making the orchestra a quality going concern, with a broad repertoire, he also touches on Rodan’s single-mindedness and his propensity for putting his charges through the mill in order to elicit the performance he demanded.
Stern puts that more succinctly in his sober look back 30-plus years on. Taking the musician’s viewpoint, he calls the feted conductor “a monster – screaming and carrying on mercilessly.” That is tempered by his one-on-one take on Rodan as “one of the nicest, most considerate people you would ever want to meet.”
Stern’s post-factum observation reads: “It is difficult to reconcile these two disparate sides of such a complex personality.” Only someone with intimate working knowledge of the subject could discern such a perspicacious bottom line.
THE BOOK makes for compelling perusal, not least due to the temporal span of Stern’s critique tenure, during which he witnessed the unfolding of numerous innovative departures in the field. New mindsets came into play in the early 1990s, as gifted youngsters and older folk arrived en masse from the former USSR and took their first steps in the Israeli musical arena.
Stern also makes the salient point that music criticism is “a subjective art” and that “nothing is ever absolute.” The man is clearly not only well versed in his craft, but he also has the self-assurance and integrity to lay his cards on the table.
We get to read about renditions of sacred and secular music, choral scores, and domestic and international soloists. Stern even permits himself to take a step or two beyond the strict confines of the art form to reference popular Israeli folk music by Sasha Argov and Moshe Wilensky, Yemenite diva Shoshana Damari, and lauded songstress Naomi Shemer – albeit all in orchestral formats with some ethnic add-ons here and there.
The Art of the Music Critic is an incisive and illuminating compendium of an expansive stretch of our musical timeline, presented in an invitingly user-friendly form. Well worth the read.
- THE ART OF THE MUSIC CRITIC
- By Max Stern
- Nova Science Publishers
- 314 pages; $130