Caio Andrade is a Brazilian man of letters, and a reader of The New Criterion. He put some questions to me and published our Q&A on his Substack blog, here. That Q&A is in Portuguese (thanks to Mr. Andrade’s translation, not my Portuguese, which does not exist). Below is the original, for your consideration.
1. Norman Lebrecht said recently that “music, like sport, requires a dimension of distance. Concertgoers see better what’s going on than players on a stage. A critic’s job is to convey the big picture.” What’s important in the role of a critic?
I could answer long—very long—or I could answer short. I will choose short! When I read a movie review, I would like to know whether I would like the movie, apart from the critic’s opinion. When I review a concert, I would like to convey a sense—an accurate sense—of what it was like, in addition to providing my own view.
Naturally, one has biases. One’s own sense of right and wrong. And in between.
Let me say this, too: a concert review is a form of journalism. It is not pure criticism. There should be doses of who-what-when-where. What was the audience like? What was the atmosphere in the hall? Was the performer wearing something exotic? What was it like to be there?
Those things should not be slighted (although criticism should have pride of place, of course).
2. You have written many times against speeches before concerts. Yet they are so prevalent nowadays. Why do you think this is so, and why don’t more people speak against the speeches?
Maybe they like them. Maybe they dislike them, and are afraid to say so. I don’t know.
Maybe the speech-givers like to hear the sound of their own voice. Maybe this is their sense of “outreach,” or “relating” to the audience. Maybe they think the audience needs a little junior-high music appreciation, before the music begins.
It used to be, we had pre-concert lectures. If you wanted to hear talk about the music, you could go to the lecture. Now the performers want to hold people hostage. After the lights dim, the talking begins, and there’s nothing a poor audience member can do about it. He is stuck. The audience is a captive one.
In an interview with me, Lorin Maazel, the late conductor, said approximately the following: “Nothing can ruin a picture in a gallery like three minutes of talk about it.”
People can read the program notes if they want—and yet, performers, from the stage, repeat what’s in the program notes. As if they were worried people wouldn’t read them.
I have heard some excellent remarks, some excellent speeches, from the concert stage. Yet, as a rule, I think talking mars or deadens an evening. It certainly lengthens it. Debussy said, “Music begins where human speech leaves off.” Nothing can communicate better than music. And if the music is not especially good—no amount of talk will help it.
By the way, I have never heard talking from the stage at the Salzburg Festival (unless the performance was specifically a concert-lecture, and advertised as such). And I have never heard talking from the stage before an opera: “Let me tell you what you should think about Simon Boccanegra.”
Curious, no?
3. In a recent interview with Riccardo Muti, you spoke about a production of Rigoletto set in 1960s Las Vegas and why it doesn’t work. Can you give some examples of operas that go well with some liberty of adaptation, including updatings?
Sure—but before I do, let me complain some more. I saw a production of Faust set in the nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos. And the characters were fighting with swords (as the libretto demands). In opera, you often have to suspend disbelief—but sometimes a production asks too much. Things are downright silly. Common sense rebels, and you say, “No! Come on!”
Plenty of operas are amenable to updating. But stage directors ought to ask, “Is it really worth it? Am I enhancing the opera, or at least doing it no harm? Offering a legitimate new angle on it?” As I have said before, I think an opera set in 1960s Las Vegas, depicting the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and the rest), is a wonderful idea. Someone ought to write one. But Rigoletto is something else—set in 16th-century Mantua.
In opera, there are plenty of updatings, but have you ever seen a backdating? I haven’t. John Adams and Peter Sellars wrote an opera set in Los Alamos: Doctor Atomic. How about setting it in 16th-century Mantua? Or 16th-century Germany, where Faust is set? Why not? Because it would be absurd, right? Well . . .
4. The research group Luminate shows that there has been remarkable growth in classical-music listening since 2021. Apple Music Classical promises to inject billions of dollars into the genre in the next few years. Are we in a golden age of classical music or the last days of it, as many people think?
Never has there been so much music available, and for free. We used to save our pennies and go to the record shop: Whose version of Beethoven’s Fifth should we buy? Klemperer’s? Walter’s? Szell’s? It was so exciting. Today, everything is available, at the flick of a finger, for free (certainly on YouTube). Does it matter? Does it make a dent on society? I don’t know.
Thea Musgrave, the composer, was interesting on this point. In an interview with me, she said, essentially, that mere listening is insufficient. Passive consumption will not suffice. You have to put your hands on an instrument and play—or sing. This ingrains a love of music.
I understand that the leading factor in whether a person attends concerts is, “Did he play an instrument when young?”
Music will be perpetuated, I think, by parents and schoolteachers who think it valuable and worthy of perpetuation.
5. What’s the biggest advantage of attending a live concert? Why should people still go to them instead of listening to recordings at home?
I love recordings—I listen to them every day. Always have, always will, I’m sure. But there is nothing like live. Nothing. Why? I’m not sure I’m able to say. We are in the realm of intangibles.
Sergiu Celibidache said, “Listening to a record is like kissing a photograph of Brigitte Bardot.” (He did not say “kissing,” but the original has been cleaned up, in the retelling.) I think a recording is more valuable than that. But Celi had a point.
6. Stravinsky said that if the public didn’t engage with the music of its own time, conductors and virtuoso performers would take the center stage of the music world, and composers would be somewhat forgotten. Has this happened? It seems he was right. Maestros and virtuosos are much more famous than living composers.
True, true. Whose fault is that? Who or what is responsible? That is a very, very big question. Someone like me is exposed to new music week after week. Very little of it sticks to the ribs. Maybe musical life has always been thus. Probably so. But we can bet that composers will continue to rise who reach the mind and touch the heart, and demand rehearing after rehearing after rehearing.
Another word on this: It cheers me when performers “roll their own,” as I say—when they compose their own music, in addition to playing others’. I think immediately of three pianists: Marc-André Hamelin, Stephen Hough, and Daniil Trifonov. Even if the music is undistinguished—I applaud the effort, the activity, the practice. I doubt you can be a complete musician without composing.
7. Is Philip Glass underrated?
Hmmm. With John Adams, he is probably the most famous living composer in the world, isn’t he (if you don’t count John Williams)? Arvo Pärt? I think Glass is rated very, very highly, whether he is underrated or overrated. If I could offer one piece to make the case for Glass, it would be his Violin Concerto No. 2, nicknamed “The American Four Seasons.” Splendid. Exciting. Lovable.
8. Are you familiar with Brazilian classical music? Please share some favorite pieces.
I hope you will forgive me—I am badly deficient in this department. I can’t get much beyond Villa-Lobos. It was Artur Rubinstein, I think, who introduced me to him. (I mean that I heard Villa-Lobos on Rubinstein recordings. Then there was Victoria de los Angeles singing Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5. Thrilling and alluring.) Thanks to the plenitude of YouTube, I will explore the classical music of Brazil . . .