Robert Stumpf, II, writes:

>I was working on a review and started going through the things I consult
>when doing so.  I began to wonder what kinds of materials others read or
>consult when listening to music or writing about it.  Here are my
>two bits:
>
>First of all I check into Michael Steinberg's books The Symphony or
>The Concerto.  Steinberg wrote (writes?) the program notes for the San
>Francisco Symphony and basically took those and turned them into a book.
>His writings are directed to an audience that may not be able to
>understand a lot of the argot or references to specific passages in a
>score and so are accessible but not simplistic.  I hope he is working
>on one about orchestral music like La Mer, etc.

I look at Steinberg, Tovey, the Penguin volumes on the concerto and the
symphony.  I'd recommend as well anything you can get by Klaus George Roy.
Then there are specialist volumes.  I would read Virgil Thomson on modern
music, Michael Kennedy on Vaughan Williams and Elgar (less good on Walton
and Mahler), Del Mar on Richard Strauss, and various critical studies on
individual composers.  New Grove gives you good background.  Slonimsky's
Lectionary of Musical Invective provides some insight into canonical
composers' bad reviews.  Norton had -- for a while, at any rate --
splendid little volumes on individual canonical pieces, like Prelude to
the Afternoon of a Faun.  I also look at back copies of ARG and Fanfare
(not often helpful for the works themselves, but they do remind me of
performances).  The Harvard Dictionary of Music (Willi Apel, ed.) gives you
great overview and clears up (and sometimes increases) semantic confusions
over musical terms.

>Next, I consult the notes with the disc.  Sometimes they are helpful but
>sometimes they are too technical to really help develop an understanding
>of the music.  I have never particularly liked Toscanini's approach to
>rehearsing, preferring Stokowski's more natural language with an orchestra.
>With my background in literature it helps me to understand and appreciate
>the music if I can get that kind of language.

Well, I've got an English background myself.  The word "natural" connected
to Stokowski would not have occurred to me, which is not to say that I
dislike Stokowski.  And to imply, however inadvertantly, that Stokowski
didn't have technical expertise seems a bit odd.  I guess I'd say that
the proof of one's rehearsal technique lies in the performance.  I used
to love Toscanini, but I find him very difficult to listen to now, most
of the time.  I've got nothing against a lack of technical background in
music (Neville Cardus, after all, couldn't read music), but it does seem
to make getting a firm grip on the work much harder.

>Comparison and contrast are essential in reviewing recordings, especially
>new releases.

I worry less about this than Robert does.  Much of the time, there is only
one recording of the kind of music I tend to review.  So comparison becomes
irrelevant.  Also, I strongly feel that one can describe a performance in
sufficient detail that the listener can form a general idea of the CD. My
problem with many comparisons (unless they are near-encyclopedic) is that
I often haven't heard the comparison discs either.  The whole point of the
comparison is to give a reader an idea of a performance he hasn't heard.
If you bet everything on the comparison, you're up the creek.

>I sometimes consult books like The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs
>but recently added a better source, Alexander Morin's Third Ear: The
>Essential Listening Companion.  Either one is frustrating at points, for
>example Morin's book doesn't mention Giulini's recording of Bruckner's 2nd
>(Testament) nor Klemperer's 6th (EMI).

I feel I will be relying less on the Penguin Guide and more on Third Ear
as time goes on.  I also like Svejda's Record Shelf volumes, mainly because
I like reading a person of strong opinions and lively expression.  I don't
always agree with Svejda (and I know he annoys many), but I do know what he
thinks and why he thinks it.  That's all I ask of any reviewer.

>I also have a collection of hundreds of articles I have acquired over
>the years since I began listening to classical music in 1976.  They
>include Stereo Review, Hi Fidelity, Stereophile, Gramophone, and recently
>from the Net I have added Tony Duggan's essays on Mahler.  These are
>catalogued by composer and usually can add to what I am writing.  I
>particularly look for interesting stories.

I would add to this the reviews in www.classical.net, in
www.musicweb.uk.net, and in www.classicalcdreview.com.

There's also an occasionally valuable book, Composers on Music: Eight
Centuries of Writings, edited by Josiah Fisk, published by Northeastern
University Press.  The composers start at Hildegard von Bingen and end with
Oliver Knussen.

Steve Schwartz