Musical Invective, etc.

Two splendid rants in the online sphere this week. . . .

In The New Republic, Richard Taruskin peruses a recent stack of classical music books and questions whether it's possible to defend classical music without resort to "pious tommyrot, double standards, false dichotomies, smug nostalgia, utopian delusions, social snobbery, tautology, hypocrisy, trivialization, pretense, innuendo, reactionary invective, or imperial haberdashery." (Warning – long article.)

From the unlikely source of The Huffington Post, a blog entry on program notes, and the impenetrability thereof. Ivan Katz asks, "Am I the only one who has noticed that the program notes provided to concert goers are, in the main, so badly written as to be embarrassing?" In this, Minnesotans may be spoiled – when I think of program notes, I think of the stylish and readable efforts by Michael Steinberg, Mary Ann Feldman, and others. But your results may vary – read on.