David Hurwitz

[Brian]

Recognising greatness does not necessarily imply comparison. Not to mention that comparison can be distracting and misleading.

This is an interesting philosophical point and based on my own experiences I mostly agree, part disagree. When I started out writing reviews of CDs, I leaned much more on comparison than later. Eventually experience (and perhaps age) provided a better ability to describe performers' intentions without resorting to constant comparison. Now that I have moved to food writing the same learning curve has taken place. These days my work has much less of statements like "this restaurant is good but that one is better," and more willingness to accept each place on its own terms.

Where I partly disagree but partly agree is on whether comparisons are "misleading." This depends on the language chosen...I am often surprised by what performances some GMGers consider to be more exciting or more passionate than others! But other things can be spoken of more clearly - faster, slower, technique issues, etc.

In Hurwitz' case he says that some of his collecting, for example multiple reissues of the same classic recording, is to write about remastering specifically which is a different kind of comparison. (One I am bad at!)

[Pohjolas Daughter]

This is an interesting philosophical point and based on my own experiences I mostly agree, part disagree. When I started out writing reviews of CDs, I leaned much more on comparison than later. Eventually experience (and perhaps age) provided a better ability to describe performers' intentions without resorting to constant comparison. Now that I have moved to food writing the same learning curve has taken place. These days my work has much less of statements like "this restaurant is good but that one is better," and more willingness to accept each place on its own terms.

Where I partly disagree but partly agree is on whether comparisons are "misleading." This depends on the language chosen...I am often surprised by what performances some GMGers consider to be more exciting or more passionate than others! But other things can be spoken of more clearly - faster, slower, technique issues, etc.

In Hurwitz' case he says that some of his collecting, for example multiple reissues of the same classic recording, is to write about remastering specifically which is a different kind of comparison. (One I am bad at!)

How often do your food reviews get published?  And how big of an area is your territory so to speak?

I suspect that I would have a hard time not gaining weight!  Do you go out with a bunch of friends and share your courses?

PD

p.s.  Your Aho traversal was quite interesting to read; alas, I can't borrow most of the recordings from my local library network. 

[DavidW]

It is absolutely hilarious to me that a thread of this size exists for a "critic."

I think it is only because he manages to strike a nerve with so many.  One thing the internet has taught me is that negativity and drama drive discourse because anger is addictive.  People will follow stories they otherwise wouldn't even care about if they can be made to feel angry over it.

[Madiel]

It is absolutely hilarious to me that a thread of this size exists for a "critic."

Lose. The. Quote. Marks. Or would you like me to put your job title in quotes all the time? I'll say it again: he's been doing this for over 30 years. Suggesting this is not his profession is insulting.

But otherwise yes, it is hilarious. Not least because people keep telling me that there are alternatives, and yet Hurwitz is basically the only classical music critic that everyone keeps talking about. I can think of only one poster on GMG who regularly attaches or discusses reviews from other sources.

EDIT: The second hilarious thing, of course, is that you just added to the size of the thread. As did I.

[Madiel]

I put my job in quote marks everyday, and I find the job of critic hilarious, so, no, I won't remove the quotes. Steiner, a critic, says it best - critics are parasites, and  I've yet to read a critic who has added a single thing to anything I've read or listened to - hence, why I don't pay them any mind. I have my own ears and my own eyes.

Funny how Steiner managed to not get quote marks. I sense a double standard.

People, including you, seem to treat Hurwitz different since he moved to YouTube, which is a fairly late development in his career. To be honest I don't think it suits him very well, he's lost the kind of editorial discipline you need to have in print.

Nevertheless, a review by a reviewer on video is still a review.

And reviewers and critics might well be "parasitic" in a sense, but don't confuse that with a lack of skill. A hell of a lot people could not write a review to a decent standard. And that includes lots of people here on this forum. Again, I think Hurwitz did a lot better in print with the quality control involved in editing things.

As for you getting no value from reviews, well, I get no value from beauty salons but I don't cast doubt upon the legitimacy of their existence. To the extent that I have a reason to talk about beauty salons, I don't go around using quote marks, or actioning them in speech, to suggest that either such businesses don't really exist or that a particular beauty salon that's been there for as long as anyone can remember is not legitimate.

[SimonNZ]

Steiner, a critic, says it best - critics are parasites, and  I've yet to read a critic who has added a single thing to anything I've read or listened to

If Steiner "says it best" then this critic has "added a single thing"...no?

Haven't the lines blurred since Saint-Beuve's time? Most serious novelists now - for quite a while now, actually - also contribute reviews to literary magazines and put out collections of their criticism. And its almost as common for artists in the other arts.

I've actually never seen or read anything by this Hurwitz guy, but I could name dozens and dozens of critics I would call artists at their craft.

[Madiel]

That was done just for you.

I find myself "skeptical" about some of your "claims" as to your "decisions" as to when and when not to use "quote marks", both here on the "forum" and in other "contexts".

[Madiel]

Steiner also says that if he didn't say it, someone else would

Well, that is true of pretty well everything. In the similar words of one of my favourite bands:

You're not the first to think that everything has been thought before.

[Madiel]

Although, in my actual life I try not to use quotation marks at all that are not direct.

Well, this is the exact opposite of your previous assertion that you put your own job title in quote marks everyday (sic). I believe you now more than I did before, frankly.

It is absolutely hilarious to me that a thread of this size exists for a "critic."

It seems to be getting funnier by the hour.

[SimonNZ]

Steiner also says that if he didn't say it, someone else would - hence, the secondary, parasitic nature of his work. Steiner also wasn't just a critic, professor is the job title he would say with the most pride.

The lines are indeed blurred, and my job will eventually try to also make me complicit in this incestuous affair, but I fight that fight until the bitter end.  Nor should anyone, I feel, pay any attention at all to their "insights," but we seemingly live in such a culture.

Perhaps you and I are talking about two distinct groups of critics.

I'm thinking of critics who have rescued artists from obscurity or eventual oblivion and have demanded the public pay attention. Or who have persuaded an indifferent public to look deeper at something they think superficially shallow, and provide a glimpse of the riches within. I could go on.

Is this "parasitic"? More than you realise would be missing without this work.

[Cato]

It is absolutely hilarious to me that a thread of this size exists for a "critic."

"Saint-Beuve said in his bitter jealously, in his devouring jealously of Balzac and Stendhal, 'they will never build statutes to critics'. He was probably wrong, we live now in a parasitic culture, where the critical, the commentary far exceeds the work, endless people ... this drives me to distraction, buy biographies of great writers, artist and never read a word of the writer they are reading about."

(George Steiner)

This topic seems like a good place for this item:

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/17/1206024022/even-beethoven-got-bad-reviews-john-malkovich-reads-them-aloud-as-the-music-crit

...The Music Critic pairs great classical music with eye-wateringly snarky reviews from the time the music was written — rendered in John Malkovich's singular voice.

For example, pianist Hyung-ki Joo (who, together with Igudesman, performs as the comedy duo Igudesman & Joo) tears through some Chopin: his Grande Valse Brillante, Op. 18.

As the critic, Malkovich opines: "Mr. Frederic Chopin has, by some means or the other which we cannot divine, obtained an enormous reputation too often refused to composers who possess several times his genius. Mr. Chopin is by no means a composer of the ordinary; he is worse."...

Somewhere in my archives I have a copy of selected reviews by Eduard Hanslick.  The cover shows a cartoon (probably from a Viennese newspaper of his day) of him wafting incense before a statue of Brahms. 

[Karl Henning]

This topic seems like a good place for this item:

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/17/1206024022/even-beethoven-got-bad-reviews-john-malkovich-reads-them-aloud-as-the-music-crit



Somewhere in my archives I have a copy of selected reviews by Eduard Hanslick.  The cover shows a cartoon (probably from a Viennese newspaper of his day) of him wafting incense before a statue of Brahms. 

I hadn't explicitly thought of Hurwitz as a parasite before, but I'm seeing it as perhaps apt.

[Brian]

How often do your food reviews get published?  And how big of an area is your territory so to speak?

I suspect that I would have a hard time not gaining weight!  Do you go out with a bunch of friends and share your courses?

PD

p.s.  Your Aho traversal was quite interesting to read; alas, I can't borrow most of the recordings from my local library network. 

Hello! First of all - happy to hear you read the Aho posts but I do hope they are available via interlibrary loan? Do you have access through the library to something like Naxos Music Library? It wouldn't surprise me if some of the items have concert performances on YouTube as well.

And I am a full time food writer in Dallas. Our territory is Dallas and the suburbs - next month one of my articles is about Fort Worth but that is a special circumstance. (They have a new fancy chef's tasting menu restaurant for $150 per person - all vegan!) I publish an article online about every other work day - could be a review, could be recommending one single dish, could be an interview or news or a list or something silly.

And yeah, I gained about 10 pounds the first year but have luckily lost half that back.  We mostly eat vegetarian at home, lots of salads and grain bowls, and then for reviews I'll go out with a table of 2-4 guests so we can all share little bits of everything.

One thing that is relevant to the discussion here is in addition to the meals that are specifically for work (and therefore charged to the magazine credit card), I can consider writing about meals I paid for myself. I could probably write those off on taxes as a business expense, but I'm just not smart enough and lose a lot of the receipts too 

[Madiel]

I hadn't explicitly thought of Hurwitz as a parasite before, but I'm seeing it as perhaps apt.

I hadn't explicitly thought of you in certain ways before, but remarks like these are influencing me.

It's been pointed out to me that GMG members are supposed to accord each other a certain basic level of respect. To which my response was essentially: why is it that a certain basic level of respect isn't expected when talking about someone who is NOT a GMG member? Why should you, as a member, expect to be respected when you make remarks like this?

This thread appears to be largely treated by some people as a place to say things about one individual that they would never dare say about any individual here. Remarks that would cause an uproar in the Purchases Today thread or the one on box sets are seen as fair game.

I do tend to respect you, actually, but every now and then say you something pretty horrible that I think you expect people to find mildly amusing, just because of who it is you're being horrible about.

[Madiel]

I should say, as a point of clarity, that Steiner use of the term parasite is wholly positive, not negative.

And to clarify, I didn't have an issue with your original quotation (though you were assuredly being negative about critics).

[Brian]

why is it that a certain basic level of respect isn't expected when talking about someone who is NOT a GMG member?

I don't want to litigate other matters ongoing here, but Dave Hurwitz is a public figure. Yes, he lurks on GMG. But he's a public figure; he chose this profession and knows he will excite public comment of all kinds. (I think I can assume this safely, since I've chosen the same path.)

I should hope it's common sense why we do not have some kind of rule about respecting public figures - a group that encompasses all manner of wonderful people but also Charles Dutoit, Placido Domingo, Boris Johnson, etc. etc. We already have rules about abusive and violent language, so it's unclear what additional protection would be necessary for famous people who don't post here.

In any case, the criticisms against DH in this thread are a pretty constant, unvaried drumbeat and, to me at least, they have rarely if ever risen to the level of being either abusive or interesting.

[DavidW]

Somewhere in my archives I have a copy of selected reviews by Eduard Hanslick.  The cover shows a cartoon (probably from a Viennese newspaper of his day) of him wafting incense before a statue of Brahms. 

And some fun quotes from Hanslick:

The Prelude to Tristan and Isolde reminds me of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel.

Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.

[Madiel]

I don't want to litigate other matters ongoing here, but Dave Hurwitz is a public figure. Yes, he lurks on GMG. But he's a public figure; he chose this profession and knows he will excite public comment of all kinds. (I think I can assume this safely, since I've chosen the same path.)

I should hope it's common sense why we do not have some kind of rule about respecting public figures - a group that encompasses all manner of wonderful people but also Charles Dutoit, Placido Domingo, Boris Johnson, etc. etc. We already have rules about abusive and violent language, so it's unclear what additional protection would be necessary for famous people who don't post here.

In any case, the criticisms against DH in this thread are a pretty constant, unvaried drumbeat and, to me at least, they have rarely if ever risen to the level of being either abusive or interesting.

Well, when we have single threads dedicated to those other public figures, we can discuss those comparisons.

I'm not for a moment suggesting Hurwitz is above criticism of his work. But questioning whether he is actually a professional or just a gluttonous music collector is not valid criticism (plus we can't have it both ways, is he a public figure or just like the rest of us?), it's the kind of remark that frankly in a lot of contexts could really get you into trouble.** It's the equivalent of someone suggesting that the reason you can be spotted in restaurants all the time has nothing to do with you reviewing them.

**There seems to be a mistaken belief that because you, the moderators, don't impose any rules, then there aren't any rules. That is not true.

There might be an associated mistaken belief that the internet is a part of the USA.

[DavidW]

**There seems to be a mistaken belief that because you, the moderators, don't impose any rules, then there aren't any rules. That is not true.

Let me assure you that the forum does have rules, but they are not your creation.  You may read them here.

This forum is not your personal playground.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I personally think that critics should seek out every recording.  How can you speak with authority about what a great recording is of a symphony or a sonata if you haven't listened to everything you could get your hands on? 

So I'm more than fine with Hurwitz and other critics having enormous collections.

Up to a point, yes. But with all the versions of everything out there - a new Ring Cycle every week, new Beethoven symphonies every 10 minutes - how can you possibly keep up? Eventually you have to base your assessments on standards of performance that you have internalized over all your years of experience - phrasing, tempo, balance, perhaps your knowledge of the score, as well as sound quality in a recording. And we may have to rely on reviews as well, filtered through our experience with a given reviewer's tastes and limitations.

As for Mr. Hurwitz, despite having been maligned on this thread by someone who could have made his points without the personal animus, of course I grant he is a professional critic. And often a very good one. Today's talk on the unpopularity of Bruckner was a case in point, and numerous times I've bought CDs based on his recommendations.

But on his YouTube channel, Hurwitz has by now become as much a narcissistic Internet personality (I think the word these days is "influencer") as a legitimate critic. While at first he maintained his dignity and rarely spoke more than 5-10 minutes at a time always keeping to the musical subject, he has become a caricature of himself, offering endless self-indulgent videos - Tinnitus classics, the great god Cancrizans, a list of Haydn for "beginners" that includes two demanding sacred works and a huge oratorio (just who are these beginners in his mind), 10 Essential Symphonic Seascapes for these same beginners (I kid you not), and so forth. While previously he gave us well-prepared discussions of individual works, of late he has been treating us to the endless fascination of watching him unpack his ginormous collection and store it on two-deep on what looks like miles of custom-built shelves, muttering things like "endless quantities of Tchaikovsky . . . oh god it's never going to end . . . . I bought like 7 of this CD, so I'd have extras . . . . well maybe there'll be 6 more videos on Tchaikovsky" and the like.

And you can't disagree with him on any topic; his geniality extends only to those who worship his every word, and if you question any of his assertions you're bound to get a prickly riposte or to find your comment deleted. I've known this from personal experience, and I'm not the only one. He's got a bug up his ass about pronunciation, claiming it doesn't matter (though his pronunciation of languages he knows like French and German is usually spot-on). But when someone wrote that the name Boulez should be pronounced Bou-lay and I responded that the final Z in Boulez was correct just like the final Z in Berlioz, my comment was deleted. Why? Isn't accuracy in these matters a sign of professionalism too?

I don't "hate" Hurwitz. He is harmless, sometimes a provocateur (30 seconds to tell us all of Boulez's music is garbage, etc.), but on the whole his presence is beneficial. And that's as far as I want to go.