The Sting of a Bad Review — And Revenge!

by Janet Horvath , Interlude

Bad reviews hurt! Why else would we remember Word for Word our first bad review?

When I was a college student, I performed one of my first solos with an orchestra. I had just won the school wide concerto competition and I was chosen to perform Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. It was in a fabulous new concert hall in Ottawa, Canada. The review said, “… nice tone, iffy intonation…a talented but premature exponent of the Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra.”

Reviews can be nasty. Some of these are infamous. Perhaps you’ve heard worse? “Often dull and obscure…” wrote Leon Escudier about Bizet’s ever-popular opera Carmen. Regarding Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, The Harmonicon, an influential monthly journal of music, printed the following review, “… Frightful indeed, which puts the muscles and lungs of the band, and the patience of the audience to a severe trial…” \

Famed writer George Bernard Shaw was quoted as saying about the Brahms Requiem, “It is so execrable and ponderously dull…“

Another favorite composer, Rachmaninoff, didn’t escape the vindictive words of Cesar Cui. He wrote “… This music (Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1) leaves an evil impression with it’s broken rhythms, obscurity and vagueness of form, meaningless repetition of the same short tricks…” And fellow Russian, Tchaikovsky?

“Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, like the first pancake, is a flop,” said Nicolai Soloviev.

Lexicon of Musical Invective

Between its hundreds of pages The Lexicon of Musical Invective, by Nicolas Slonimsky, first published in 1953, and later revised in 2000, is a collection of brutal outbursts. I suppose it is more entertaining to read a slam than a gushing review. None other than Peter Schickele of P.D.Q. Bach fame wrote the foreword to the book:

“It is a widely known fact—or, at least, a widely held belief—that negative criticism is more entertaining to read than enthusiastic endorsement. There is certainly no doubt that many critics write pans with an unbridled gusto that seems to be lacking in their (usually rarer) raves, and these critics often become more famous, or infamous, than their less caustic colleagues.

– From “Dangerous Minds”, Posted by Ron Kretsch

Klaus Tennstedt

One of our favorite conductors of all time was Klaus Tennstedt our principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra from 1979 to 1982. We just clicked! Everything we performed with him was magic. He was known for his brilliant interpretations of Mahler symphonies and we played many of those, but we also performed other works including Beethoven and a memorable performance of the New World Symphony of Antonin Dvořák. The interpretation was so deep and riveting that many of us were literally in tears on stage. It was one of those times that we ascended into the spheres making music that transcended boundaries. Sadly, the reviewer didn’t think so. We were aghast. The headline read:

“Is Klaus Tennstedt Losing His Touch?”

As perhaps you know, the slow movement has a memorable melody for the English horn, which was performed with great heart and soul by our young English horn player now a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The reviewer, with stunning ignorance, referred to the famous solo as an oboe solo — indicating to us that this person not only lacked discernment but also of basic knowledge of orchestral music.

Normally one has to take a bad review and swallow it! It’s a matter of taste, preference and perhaps experience of other performances. But here was a case of blatant ignorance.

The members of the orchestra decided to do something that we’ve never done before — not only did several of us write individual letters to the newspaper, we wrote a collective letter— a rebuttal, that was signed by virtually all the members of the orchestra, head lined:

Dvořák Conductor Didn’t Deserve Critic’s Caviling

“As members of the Minnesota orchestra, we wish to express our collective outrage at the criticism written by X. We strongly question the credibility of the XX in engaging a free-lance writer who knows so little about the subject matter. A cursory glance through the program notes would have revealed to X that the solo in the LARGO movement of Dvořák New World Symphony was not an oboe, as X stated, but an English horn…. unable to distinguish a great performance from a bad one….X stated Maestro Tennstedt had “nothing new to say about the New World Symphony…” criticizing the orchestra for including a “Warhorse” on the program that was capable of, “bringing down the house even with a high school orchestra… the last movement seemed to have nothing to say, but said it loudly…”

…The spontaneous ovation from the 2,200-plus members of the audience and the 82 members of the Minnesota Orchestra on the stage …constituted an eloquent testament to the depth of the performance and the profundity of Tennstedt’s interpretation…

The orchestra is forced to compete with the orchestras of Berlin, London, Boston, New York and Philadelphia (to name a few) for his time and talent and it is lamentable that the X prints insulting columns by a writer who not only displays a dearth of simple musical knowledge but also a total lack of critical acumen… Klaus Tennstedt’s knowledge and genius are not in question. However the critical perceptiveness of X and the editorial integrity of XX most certainly are.

The reviewer was fired. Bad reviews may be part of the business but the next time you are rejected, passed on or criticized, remember our sweet revenge!

Secret Stories Behind The Greatest Classical Compositions: Dvořák’s “New World Symphony”

Officially, the “New World Symphony” is Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, B. 178, and subtitled “From the New World.”  Of course, everyone simply calls it the “New World Symphony.” Dvořák composed the symphony over the first half of 1893, and it was premiered by the New York Philharmonic on December 13, 1893, at Carnegie Hall.

It was a hotly anticipated work. So much so that Carnegie Hall was forced to install a significant amount of extra seating to meet the demand for the premiere. Why so much anticipation? 

At that time, Dvořák was living and working in New York City as the musical director of the National Conservatory of Music of America. The conservatory opened in 1888 with the twin aims of making music education available to talented students from every background, including marginalized communities, and to foster the creation of a particularly American national music. 

Dvořák came on as musical director in 1892. As such, his work on The New World Symphony was an explicitly intentional attempt to bring an American musical sensibility to European classical music. He'd made public comments months earlier that he felt the core of an American sound could be found in Native American communities and African-American spirituals, and it was these sensibilities he'd bring to his new composition. 

His comments on his influences for the symphony caused a stir, and discussions by writers and critics about what could be expected continued until the day before the premiere. In an interview with Dvořák, published by The New York Daily Herald, he reiterated that he was influenced and inspired by Native American music and black spirituals when he composed the symphony to be performed the next night. 

Folk Music at the Core of a Classical Composition 

Before he ever arrived in the United States, Dvořák was already well-known, particularly for his compositions incorporating Czech folk music from his native Bohemia.  From a humble background, he keenly felt the struggle to maintain a cultural and political independence of his homeland from the weight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As such, he came to America with the approach of drawing on well-formed local folk music. 

He began composing the New World Symphony in New York City but completed it during a summer excursion to Iowa, where there was a large Czech community. Thus, he got to experience a range of American vistas as he wrote, often inspired by America's wide-open spaces. 

Dvořák also studied music that originated in the African-American community. He heard a student singing spirituals at the Conservatory and asked him to sing some more. Quickly, Dvořák and his student Henry Burleigh (soon to be a composer himself) were meeting regularly, with Burleigh teaching Dvořák all he had learned growing-up hearing his mother, a freed slave, sing. In his personal notes, Burleigh wrote that Dvořák had described the spiritual “Go Down Moses” as great as any theme composed by Beethoven. 

The New World Symphony is noted for using elements characteristic of slave spirituals, including syncopated rhythms, pentatonic scales, and flatted seventh. It’s been debated whether Dvořák derived from specific songs in the New World Symphony. For his part, Dvořák said he was inspired by the music without directly using specific melodies.  Yet many, including Burleigh, couldn’t help but hear echoes of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in the second theme of the first movement. 

n a more abstract level, Dvořák was also inspired by Longfellow’s poem “Song of Hiawatha.” According to Dvořák’s sketch notes and public comments, the symphony’s second movement, the Largo, was inspired by Hiawatha’s journey across the American plains with his wife, Minnehaha. The third movement, a Scherzo, was animated by the feasting and energetic dancing of the magician Pau-Puk-Keewis during the wedding scene of the epic. Indeed, he had thought to use these movements as the basis for a full-scale vocal work of Longfellow’s poem. 

Impact of The New World Symphony 

The work was a huge success. At the premiere, the audience applauded so loudly between each movement that Dvořák stood to bow before the orchestra could continue. It had its first European premiere less than a year later, performed by the London Philharmonic Society on June 21, 1894. It was premiered in Prague and other Czech cities later in 1894. From there, it’s remained a favorite all over the world. 

The New York Philharmonic celebrated the symphony’s 175th anniversary with the performance linked in the opening paragraph, and by starting the New World Initiative, a competition for artists to create new works inspired by the New World Symphony. You can find the winners and performances here. 

The work has been so closely associated with African-American spirituals, that many believed that Dvořák used the popular folk song “Goin’ Home” in the Largo. In fact, it was the symphony’s Largo movement that inspired “Goin’ Home,” which wasn’t written until 1922. You can listen to the legendary Paul Robeson sing it here. 

Interestingly, Neil Armstrong brought a recording of the symphony with him during the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. 

The Melting Pot Symphony 

While inspired by local musical and folk traditions, Dvořák remained firmly in the European classical tradition for its structure. The symphony is made up of four movements and built on a framework of developing and repeating themes. 

Leonard Bernstein, in a lecture deconstructing the work, identified themes with Czech, French, German, Scottish and Chinese origins. Indeed, music critic James Huneker, in his review of the symphony’s premiere, described it as “distinctly American,” exactly because it was made up of so many elements representing the diverse American culture.

Published by StringOvation Team on October 11, 2017

Photo of Antonin Dvorak courtesy of the Gallica Digital Library

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 "From The New World" / Karajan · Vienna Philarmonic