David Allen, the esteemed music critic for the New York Times, was probably in search of a column when he recently let loose on the Boston Symphony and its conductor, Andris Nelsons. I’ve always considered the BSO to be the best orchestra in the world. It has to be tough to write for the Times and on some level understand that the New York Philharmonic doesn’t hold a candle to the Boston group, not only the best but the best endowed orchestra in the country. Right?
Critic Allen says that he was once a huge Nelsons fan but not so much anymore. He contends that Nelsons doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. As the reformed trumpet player that I am, I’m here to tell you that not only is Nelsons at the top of almost everyone’s best conductor list but he is certainly one of the best trumpet men in the world. We’ll let go of the fact that Nelsons has won three Grammy Awards for his Shostakovich recordings, conceded by the Times. In fact, compliments from the Times seem to be anything but, as in Allen’s description of Nelsons’ Wagner work “ . . . not even his formidable if noncommittal accounts of Wagner . . . ” That seems nonsensical.
This type of criticism doesn’t stop with the Times. Even the Berkshire Eagle boasted a critic who seemed to get great pleasure from attacking the great Ozawa. He actually wrote a book doing just that. As the old saying goes, “if you can’t do, teach and if you can’t teach, become a music critic.” Okay, I made the last part up.
As the critic properly points out, Nelsons and the BSO have to satisfy many constituencies. When they play Mozart or Beethoven, they sell out their seats, and yet there are always those, shall we say, musically effete folks who want to hear the obscure and frankly unlistenable monsters of the atonal. Right?
But what is really annoying about the Times article is what I consider the unprincipled attack on something that comes from Boston. So often, the Red Sox prove to be a better team than the spend-at-all cost Yankees. So this is just another attack by the New Yorkers on Boston, right? This is ridiculous. The attack by the New York newspaper is an insult to all of us who live equidistant from Boston or New York City but who know down to our shoes and socks that nothing in my hometown New York City can kiss our behinds when it comes to our Tanglewood and the best orchestra in the world. I mean, this is war.
You understand, of course, that no matter what you do, you open yourself to inexpert criticism. Here’s a sentence for the record books: “Mr. Nelsons’ reluctance to take a point of view and his reliance instead on the undoubted competence of his players, becomes wearing.” Of course, that’s a joke right there. Naturally, to build a case, our Times critic tells us that the orchestra “clicks” better under guest conductors.
OK, so what is it that readers of this column should do? You could open your Berkshire windows and scream at the top of your lungs, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Don’t get me wrong — our critic has a perfect right to pen an internally inconsistent article. After all, he is writing for a newspaper that may be credited with saving the American Constitution and its guarantees of liberty. Also, as a columnist who has to come up with several columns every week, I get it that the Times may have a turf war itself against anything that is Bostonian.
Nevertheless, when you pick on the Boston Symphony, you just better smile. It’s our orchestra and we have to protect it when it’s attacked. Pick up a pencil and write to the Times that you just won’t have it.
