Dear Forum Members
Happy New Year
Yesterday, Roger Hecht of ARG has answered to my earlier reaction to his review as follows:
Maestro Adriano,
I have enjoyed your recordings for years, e.g., the Strong discs, Herrmann's score to Jane Eyre, Honegger's to Les Miserables, film scores by Ibert and Bliss, the lesser known Respighi, and the Fritz Brun symphonies. I expected something really good from your new Pilati disc and was shocked to find the music so uninteresting. I would never have associated it with you. I might have passed it to a "specialist" if it were well known and its quality needed no comment from a reviewer, or if its light music genre were all that was at issue, but neither was the case. My "problem with the [Pilati] pieces" was the music and the conducting. It didn't require a specialist to hear that, so I alerted the reader to my tastes and perspectives, noted there were positive reviews elsewhere, and reviewed it.
As for your comment about "Italian folk music", etc., I was not writing about folk song arrangements. I was reviewing orchestral music that used folk songs or folk style songs as thematic material--like Bartok's Dance Symphony, Kodaly's Hary Janos, Martinu's symphonies, works by Vaughan Williams, Chavez, Villa Lobos, etc. One does not have to be an ethnomusicologist to appreciate what Copland did with `Good Bye Old Paint' in Billy the Kid, what Mahler did with `Frere Jacques' in his First Symphony, or the questions surrounding `Goin' Home' in Dvorak's Ninth. Nor must one analyze a major scale to marvel at what Tchaikovsky created in the `Grand Pas de Deux' from Nutcracker. Knowing those things adds to appreciation, but final judgment rests on the piece as a whole, and that is where I found Pilati wanting. As for his harmonies, let's just say that those of Respighi and Casella are far more sophisticated and interesting.
My proofreading missed the errors of "Antonia" and "Divertimento" (which I at least got right in the heading), and I apologize. "Uncomfortably Russian" referred to the Tarantella, which sounds more Russian than Italian and feels out of place. "Melodies say little" means they are not interesting, compelling, or particularly beautiful. "Sounds square" means, dull, bland, not particularly inventive, routine. Perhaps I should have said those things in the first place. I stand by my review and would advise people to look into your other, far more interesting discs now and into the future.
Sincerely,
Roger Hecht
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Dear Mr. Hecht
Thanks for your explanations.
About the conducting, you should comment such things only by comparing with the scores, to see what exactly I have done with them.
All the best for 2012.
Adriano
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Has anybody ever seen a critic not standing by one of his reviews? The problem Mr. Hecht has with what he calls an apparent Russian inflection of the Tarantella is really strange. Pilati uses there the same devices as Respighi and other Italian composers who orchestrated Napolitain Tarantellas for large orchestra. These devices include exotic intervals and harmonic changes who are traditional. Incidentally. I do not find that this piece feels "out of place" at all; on the contrary, it completes and concludes this Suite effectfully. All three pieces are Neo-Baroque renderings of ancient Napolitain themes. They are, incidentally, the composer's orchestrations of his own three pieces for violin and piano of 1929-1930.
Hecht still admits in his explantions that he "alerted the reader" to his "tastes and perspectives"; which, in my opinion, is just what a reviewer should not do. Reviewer's personal opinions should not be the subject of a review. Reviews should be written by professional musicologists, who are trained to objectivity.
At least, Hecht admits not to like these pieces, but just this is of no interest.
A real pity he still does not (or cannot) explain in detail why he finds my conducting not good enough. Of course I realize not to be a revelation, but I am aware of doing a respectful and sincere job.
Remember Bernard Herrmann's statement about criticism, saying that he would accept judgements only from his peers and not from his inferiors?
Best regards from Zurich/Switzerland
Adriano
