----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Hecht"
Subject: Re: NYPO Drops Off The "Big Five" List
>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 05:13:41 -0500
>Karl Miller writes:

>As for the success of Levine...that has me stumped. He isn't like any
>designer gown, he ain't exotic, he is a very well trained highly talented
>musician, but for me, in the final analysis, his interpretations bore
>me to death.

>Overrated for sure, but that has not stopped the Boston press from
>lionizing him, just as in a different way it covered for Ozawa.
>Roger Hecht

When you refer to the "Boston press", you may be referring to Richard
Dyer of the Boston Globe.  The Boston Herald has cut W-A-Y back on
cultural coverage and the weekly Boston Phoenix has an able critic,
but that publication is heavily focused on popular "art" such as movies,
TV and the output of the recording industry.  Richard Dyer retired at
the end of the Tanglewood season, and his official retirement party just
occurred.  He was the most prominent hagiographer of James Levine over
the past several years; who knows, he might have been a significant
catalyst for Maestro Levine's hiring.  His replacement, Jeremy Eichler,
formerly of the parent NY Times, has not been given the number of
column-inches Dyer had, and hasn't so far run many ruminative pieces in
the Arts section of the Sunday Globe, so we may have to wait a while for
him to become a force in the musical culture in the City Formerly Known
As The Hub Of The Universe.

Laurence Glavin
Methuen, MA