First, Jason Greshes wrote, among other things:

>>I don't see Vroon editorals as sufficent reason to not subscribe to ARG,
>>but it would be nice if Vroon recognized that others have the free speech
>>right to not purchase his speech.

And then Len Fehskens wrote:

>I have to admit I find cancelling a subscription over an editorial quote
>like "we don't need new music" to be a bit excessive.  After all, the
>fact that his editorials are in each issue doesn't mean you *have* to read
>them, and they don't seem to affect the quality of the reviews written by
>everyone else.  Seems a bit like cutting off one's nose to spite one's
>face.

Of course, this whole topic is not new with Vroon; it seems to come up
every few years.

Recently, I got a letter from American Record Guide saying that they had
"found" my address as a former subscriber, and asking if I'd consider
resubscribing.  I thought about it for several days, and re-read some of my
archival copies of ARG before deciding no thanks, Jason Greshes' thoughtful
post notwithstanding.

Vroonspeak is something that I have conflicting emotions about.  Yes, it
is true, as Len Fehskens says, that one can entirely ignore his column
rantings.  At least most of them--but besides the famous flap about
African- Americans, his editorials on culture in the US also betray a
viewpoint of our social scene that disturbs me as someone who is not one
of his vaunted European-derived life forms.  In the Nov-Dec.  1995 issue,
he wrote openly that he considers America's diverse society as a weakness,
not a strength, because we all don't have a "common" set of (I guess
European-based) values.  Unfortunately, I was never clear about what those
values should be.  Saying as he did that "Europe has long been a healthier
and happier place" because of its homogeneity is fine by me, if he wants
to ignore World Wars I and II, the Nazis, the Warsaw Pact, the Balkans etc.
This isn't a slam on Europe; after all its history is too complex to be
summed up in a single sentence, whether by me or Vroon.

I realize that Vroon has said complimentary things about Asians because so
many of us seem to have an appreciation of classical music that is quite
different from the typical American's attitude about CM.  Yet I cannot help
but get the feeling it's still not good enough, such that he actually
desires that we BE here, because like other non-Europeans, our values are
"at odds with the values that made our civilization what it is today." So
while he routinely trashes American culture, he still seems to treasure
it enough to want to preserve it from the multicultural hordes and the
immigrants, some of whom could well be more receptive to "European"
classical music than European-descended Americans who now live only to
watch the Country Music Awards or wait for the latest Eminem release.

Now normally, this wouldn't bother me, since I spent my younger years a
couple of hours from where ARG is headquartered, and I got used to people
in the Midwest complimenting me on how I spoke English "with hardly no
accent," (sic), and Vroon strikes me in much the same way.  Unfortunately,
the problem is that he is also the Editor of ARG, and sometimes I find that
his inconsistency of logic and his editorial decisions don't serve me well
enough to make me want to resubscribe.  About a year before he wrote the
editorial comments I quoted, Vroon wrote one of ARG's Overviews of Mozart
concerto recordings, and made a wholesale dismissal of ALL period
instrument versions of the piano concertos (Bilson, of course; but also
Immerseel and others) because they were those silly godawful HIP orchestras
and pianos of course.  No reason why, except that they were HIP.  So this
is an "overview"?

Vroon himself has said that period instruments are fine for Renaissance
music, but he goes apoplectic when they're used in Bach, or Mozart, or
Brahms.  The difference in his attitude escapes me; I wonder if it's
because one type of music has a cherished tradition of performance
practices by Old White Guys with Batons that the other doesn't.  So I
don't know which side of the Great Vroon Divide that Monteverdi or Schutz
reside--and would period instruments and HIP singing styles be OK for their
music because they're pre-Bach, or because Furtwangler and Ormandy didn't
perform them?

Finally, I noticed something that's happened on occasion in ARG that others
such as Don Satz have also commented upon--the "reviews" of certain CDs by
reviewers who could easily be predicted NOT to like them, either because
the performances are HIP, or because the music is atonal etc.  Why should
I pay to read comments from a particular person who usually only does
traditional operatic fare, taking smug ideological swipes at a HIP
performance of Dowland lute songs? Especially when there have been expert
and knowledgeable people at ARG (like John Barker, Carl Baumann, Catherine
Moore or Elaine Fine) who are familiar with both HIP and non-HIP approaches
to music, and could make much more useful comments for someone who
considers getting performances in both styles.  Because I follow the more
specialized genre of Early Music fairly keenly (and which may subsequently
be more limited in its numbers of releases vs.  the latest CM for Dummies
crossover), this sort of 'shill' reviewing is useless.

It may very well be silly of me to keep from enjoying what's good about
ARG partly because I find Vroon's editorials to be pointless repetitions
of the same old canards.  I can certainly see myself once again becoming a
subscriber in a post-Vroon era.  But given that I have access to opinions
and commentary from people I respect, regarding recordings I'm likely to
be interested in via forums other than ARG, it's an uphill battle for me
to justify joining up again right now.  I don't wish ARG ill, and hope it
continues, but I reserve my right to vote with my feet (or checkbook, in
this case).

Bill H.