Two recent arts features illuminate the limitations of Times classical music journalism in these straitened times.
A report on the San Francisco Symphony by Robin Pogrebin and Javier C. Hernández omitted to mention the brilliant quarter-century balancing act of Michael Tilson Thomas as music director, followed by instant incomprehension with his successor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. It depicted Salonen’s recruitment as a coup by the previous board of management but gave no indications of why the conflict developed. Salonen, clearly, refused to talk, but a clearer picture could have been obtained from his associates. Instead, the Times floated the red herring of his ‘Treasure Island’ venture, a plan that was never more than pie in the sky.
Similarly, a report on the Boston Symphony’s new boss, Chad Smith, failed to sound out his former associates at the LA Phil, where he was accused of high-handedness and, in some instances, bullying. The Times’s piece by Joshua Barone makes him sound like a fresh-minted messiah. This form of PR-driven journalism does poor service to performers and patrons in San Francisco, Boston and LA who know the reality of these situations.
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