Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Was he listening?

I have been excited about Augustin Hadelich's Carnegie Hall recital debut, which happened a few days ago. I was really disappointed to read this New York Times review by Bernard Holland because, aside from mentioning that Carnegie Hall is a large room for a violin and piano recital, he didn't mention anything about Hadelich's playing. Was he listening? This was also the New York premiere of Bright Sheng's Night at the Chinese Opera, and it seemed to go by without anything but a superficial description.

Augustin Hadelich is a great violinist. If the reviewer for the New York Times doesn't think so, I know that I am not the only person who would appreciate knowing why. It also seems that a New York premiere of an important piece by an important composer that was being played by the winner of an International Competition (and one held in America) was not an important enough event to warrant a real review in the New York Times.

Those of us who were not able to be at the recital will need to rely on bloggers, I suppose. Anyone who was there and has written about it, please leave a link to your post in the comments. If you would like to put your review of this concert in the comments for this post, I would appreciate it. I know that I am not the only person who would be interested in reading about the concert, and I imagine I'm not the only person who is disappointed in the New York Times.

2 comments:

Lisa Hirsch said...

The answer to your question, sadly, is obvious.

Chantal said...

You hit the nail on the head! We read reviews to hear about how concerts sounded---yet we didn't get any of that from BH!