Janos Gereben transmitted this from Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic:

> Sure, she sings, but that's not the angle: It's that Charlotte is just 12
> years old.

The only line which i would critisize VERY SHARP.

Yehudi Menuhin was also only 12 giving internationally remarkeable
concerts, so just the age itself can not be the point, and there is no
need to pretend on the age, if she is that bad.  I never heard her, and
i have no knowledge about singing, and at least, i hope to be more a
musician, and more a thinker, than a critic, but.....

> This is a child who would be a particularly remarkable asset to a
> parish church choir.  But a star soloist? It is to laugh.

.....you know how it is.  The music industry is selling things which are
supposed to make money.  artistry...  WHO CARES???  such things are so
sugar sweet, maybe in some cases kitschy, of course, but people are buing
it.  It is like with the old problem of classical music and public.  To
purchase quality products, you first have to know what quality is, and if
such a "prodigy child" is regarded as top of the heap, it is sold, and
sold...  It is like with Helfgott:  Nightmare music, big story, big wonder,
BIG MONEY.  (Or Mon(k)ey)?

The format of the young song-bird awake, as seen on the cover, associations
to "angel", "innocence" and such things.

With such icons, this little girl paints the picture of a better world,
and is designed to feed the world of illusions.  Maybe another form of
artistry.  The point is, that it is sold with the wrong label.  If you
would sell it with the all - day commercial music, but she would lose the
reliability, which she owns, running under a classical label.

In a hardware supply store you would not find it in this shelve:

TITANIUM SCREWS, 5 millimeters thick, but hold 20 tons...

More likely in this shelve:

IVORY SCREWS, very rare, looking damn good, are to screw in the air, do not
need a wall to hold, not usable for weights above 2 grams, but THIS screw
reminds you of your youth.

It will be ever the same.  Hope "we" will have classical music in 100
years.....

>Give the kid -- and us -- a break.

Never mind.  At least with the development taking place rom 13 to 17 years,
most "child prodigys" lose most parts of their arcadian painture.  If they
hold the painture, they are true prodigys.....

Bitter, to see how hungry the music industry is, it needs all day along
fresh flesh, and if the young girl is not interestening any more, it will
be threwn away, not understanding what has happened.

> RATING: One star

Better than nothing, huh?

Regards, Norman Reppingen, Germany