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.