{"id":2264,"date":"2013-11-11T11:19:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T11:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geraldgarcia.com\/wordpress\/?p=2264"},"modified":"2013-11-06T01:24:55","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T01:24:55","slug":"sondheim-and-slonimsky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/?p=2264","title":{"rendered":"Sondheim and Slonimsky"},"content":{"rendered":"

To continue the little digression on invective<\/a><\/strong> –<\/p>\n

\"\"Some time ago, composer and playwright Stephen Sondheim<\/a> wrote a book called\u00a0\u00a0Look, I Made a Hat<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>which amongst many other wry observations contains the following paragraph, which I find expresses exactly what it is I enjoy about reading uncomprehending criticism. It might also be comforting for those who feel “unfairly trashed” (and who hasn’t?)…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There are theatre people who claim to be immune to public criticism, and perhaps some really are, but I haven\u2019t met any who have convinced me. When I first entered the arena, and for a long while was not treated kindly by most critics, the reviews had a perversely salubrious effect on me,<\/strong> although I was far from immune. Every time I felt unfairly trashed, I retreated to my copy of\u00a0Nicolas Slonimsky\u2019s Lexicon of Musical Invective<\/a>, a startling and hilarious, if discomfiting, compendium of published criticism about everyone from Beethoven to Copland. To read the sneering and uncomprehending reviews the likes of Brahms and Ravel received made me feel akin to them<\/strong>, and by association as innovative, brilliant and\u00a0misunderstood.<\/p>\n

Slonimsky\u2019s display of these monumental misjudgments should be required reading for every artist, particularly those just starting out. Older artists are less vulnerable because they\u2019ve survived: they\u2019ve learned they can be wounded but not killed,<\/strong> that what once was devastating has become merely annoying. And if they survive long enough, they become venerable, which is decent compensation. The solution, of course, is not to read reviews of your own work<\/strong>, although the temptation is hard to resist. Who knows: one of them might refer to you as the greatest writer since (fill in name of most admired writer here); but learn to resist you do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here is a smattering of reactions to his book, written mainly by professional critics!<\/p>\n

“LA Weekly”<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0I’ll make a deal with Mr. Sondheim: I’ll agree to refrain from composing show tunes if he’ll agree to keep to his side of the great, critic-artist divide.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Michael Billington in the Guardian <\/a>– “Artists often hate critics; they also need the stimulus of public comment<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

NYTimes Sunday Book Review<\/a> – “he\u2019s most defensive when dealing with critical or commercial failures; of \u201cAssassins\u201d \u2014 which many critics panned \u2014 he declares, ‘The show is perfect.'”<\/em><\/p>\n

Entertainment<\/a> –<\/p>\n

And here is Sondheim dissing “South Pacific”!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I truly regret not going to his series of lectures when he was Visiting Professor of Drama<\/a> at Oxford in 1989<\/p>\n

Some music by Sondheim for Baritone and Guitar – Sunday Song Set
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To continue the little digression on invective – Some time ago, composer and playwright Stephen Sondheim wrote a book called\u00a0\u00a0Look, I Made a Hat\u00a0which amongst many other wry observations contains the following paragraph, which I find expresses exactly what it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[608,77,24],"tags":[542,610,611,609],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2267,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions\/2267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/247767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}