Who writes this stuff on record sleeves?
mainFrom the rear cover of a forthcoming release:
Sophie Pacini is the new voice of the piano today. The charismatic Italian-German musician, a winner of multiple awards, is hailed as the eminent artist of her generation. Her interpretations of the great works of Liszt and Beethoven radiate the full spectrum of colours – combining breathtaking virtuosity with highly nuanced poetry of sound.’
Is there one word here that can be trusted?
Who writes this stuff?
It’s on a par with, “Richly grained, finely textured and structurally coherent.”, which I once encountered in the Gramophone.
As the performers, competitions, awards and performances have become virtually interchangeable, so has the syntax of “pseud” writeups like the above.
One exception perhaps – the expanse and location of naked flesh presented by the female artists in the press gallery and cover photos. This one appears to be decidedly modest in that respect, and may well have to rethink that particular facet in order to keep abreast of the competition.
New voice of the piano?
Never heard of Sophie!!! Probably not missing much.
Better yet, check out her concert performance of the “Waldstein” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd8umypv2Cc). It’s so tame and, shockingly, quite dull. She’s pretty and can play – but not nearly good enough to rank her as advertised. And all that puff about her greatness? It’s the job of her management and the record company to shout from the rooftops about the brilliance of….fill in the blank the artist in question. Such hype is used so casually and unblushingly with every movie/TV show/book/recording/theater piece, etc. that it’s best to simply breeze past it. In this case, Sophie’s choice is an easy one: Spend your money elsewhere.
It’s not as bad as I thought it would be; quite OK, really.
I’ve read similar stuff on SD!
Someone should devise a list of words often used in music reviews that can be used when playing “bullshit bingo” during meetings of musical administrators.
True, but the problem here is that this is not a review. It’s written for the cover and is supposed to be informative, just as are the inside-flaps of book covers. Today, however, sometimes the CD cover, and almost always the book flap, read like rave reviews. In this case, I suspect a fair amount of sheer ignorance, often now encountered also in the season calendars of orchestras. A careful look at these multiple awards rather clues one in — mostly scholarships with just one victory in a little-known competition. I know the sort of people who write those orchestra calendars, and I’m pretty sure we have the same here.
Ellingtonia says: “Someone should devise a list of words often used in music reviews that can be used when playing “bullshit bingo” during meetings of musical administrators.”
How about generation, passion, audience outreach, new music/new composer champion [especially from artist’s home country], social media star, …
Not forgetting ‘iconic, narrative, discourse etc. How on earth did the words ‘great’ and ‘Liszt’ end up in the same sentence?
What utter humbuggery. Of course they belong in the same sentence. Are you related to that dire music critic and biographer Ernest Newman?
The silly plonker is actually descended from Mae West. She said that Liszt was not great, and it was possibly so, but she wasn’t talking about his music. (–:
The same way that “Frederick West says” ends up in the same phrase.
Probably the same people who write the blurb on the back of (generally cheaper) wine bottles; usually people who seem not to have actually tasted the contents, but who do a fine line in flowery adjectives instead.
True. It’s called “marketing”.
Sounds like a Google Translate job. Does it read better in the German, or Italian, edition, I wonder? Mind you, “voice of the piano” is particularly unfortunate.
Well, I suppose you can trust words such as ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘Italian-German’, ‘piano’, ‘great’, ‘works’, ‘Liszt’ and ‘Beethoven’. In accusing a writer of exaggeration, one doesn’t want to fall into exaggeration oneself! TP
If the contents of the disc is good then the ‘puff’ doesn’t matter. No-one buys a cd for the notes…
(Mind you, I’ve been tempted by some cd covers…
If the contents of the disc are exceptional then the ‘puff’ doesn’t matter. No-one buys a cd for the notes…
(Mind you, I’ve been tempted by some cd covers…
A sycophantic moron by the look of it.
ignore the words and listen to this … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7h5vCGYCak
Thank you.
The lack of musical talent is stupendous.
It’s embarrassing!! She’d be good on “Britain’s Got Talent”!! Oh, wait….
Mike
justify your remark?
Geoff
Thanks for that, Geoff. Perhaps better still, because more telling, see the YT recital performance of the ‘Waldstein’ Sonata. That told me that she is a very, very good pianist indeed. I can see why Martha Argerich has taken her under her wing. She is young, of course, and better still may come. Notable also in these days was her manner on stage, her attire, her modest bows, and swift departure — the antithesis of what we are used to from so many young artists I do not need to name. And so, that ludicrous puffery on the cover of the CD, which includes the ‘Waldstein’, actually does her a disservice.
Somewhere, there’s an Elaine Benes writing blurbs for classical music.
Some of the drivel I’ve seen in record companies’ press releases is so naive that it’s embarrassing to read. But even if it’s justified as constituting effective marketing it should not extend as far as misrepresentation. Warner reissued Claudio Arrau’s 1947 recording of the Brahms First Concerto with a blurb on the back of the CD box describing it as: “a Brahms First Concerto which, late in life, Arrau confessed was his own preferred version amongst his recordings”.
Now here’s Arrau’s own words on that 1947 recording after he had recently listened to it, as related in his conversation book with Joseph Horowitz (Collins, 1982, p. 174): “It was awful! I was going to say, ‘Who is this pianist?’ … I hated it”.
In view of the perilous state of recorded music today and the large number of fine pianists no longer able to make recordings, I am prepared to overlook the blurb and enjoy the music of a very promising newcomer.
Awards[edit]
2002 und 2005 1st prize at “Jugend musiziert”.
2006 1st prize at the Grotrian Steinweg competition, Brunswick.
2009 1st prize at the Great Scholaship Competition of the Austrian Academies of Music, donated by Hildegard Maschmann
2009 The Salzburg Mozarteum’s Huebel-scholarship
2011 Prix Groupe Edmond de Rothschild of the “Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad”
2011 Förderpreis Deutschlandfunk beim Bremer Musikfest[6]
2012 Young Artist Prize of the festival “Pietrasanta in concerto”[7]
2013 Price of “Mozart-Gesellschaft-Dortmund”
2015 ECHO Klassik Award “Newcomer of the Year 2015”
OK, I take back what I suggested about her being on ‘Britain’s Got Talent”. But, honestly, she’s no better than dozens of pianists I’ve heard in the Chopin and Sydney International Piano competitions quite recently. If MA has taken her under her wing it only shows me that it’s not WHAT you know but WHO you know.
Sue
I’m impressed by this pianist – Anna Tsybuleva – she won the Leeds last year – have you heard her play?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMUqfqvtLzA&feature=youtu.be
Geoff
Some slips at the end of the “Wanderer” but she’s sounding quite good. I haven’t heard her play before. Was less convinced by the Bach junior, though.
Sue
I am interested in what you say re the Wanderer. I had noticed that the video is not in synch with the sound at the end of the Schubert.
But can you say when on the timeline these slips? Somewhere around 39 minutes into the video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMUqfqvtLzA
Cheers
Geoff
Cheers
Geoff
None of the awards you mentioned are prominent or give international exposure.
Echo klassik award basically depends on how much money the person sticks into the marketing.[redacted]
My personal favourite is ‘One of the most dynamic (discipline) of his/her generation’. It means bugger all.
There’s nothing new to this sort of blurb. How about “Callas, the Voice of the Century”? As a vocal actress, undoubtedly but there have been many more beautiful soprano voices.
Oh, but that original comment didn’t actually refer to her singing voice!!!!!!
In a sense, liner notes like those demerits the interpreter no matter how good or bad she/he is. Charles Rosen did the right thing – distressed by the revolting humbug printed with one of his first Chopin albums, he wrote the liner notes in his next albums himself.
I opened a program of a small touring production of “Porgy and Bess” and read this – the beginning of the conductor’s bio: “Often compared to Mozart and Bernstein……..”
The only thing to do was to look up his agent and write her: “He’s no Mozart or Bernstein…..”
Try this, from what purports to be a scholarly book on a contemporary composer:
‘Initially the image and sensing of the water lily are transformed into a purely musical expression, but once one has heard the music, the flower takes on new meanings as one becomes aware of its visual, metaphorical, and spiritual essence.’
That is absolutely priceless!! So, Madison Avenue isn’t the only culprit it seems!!
Check out her Wikipedia page: it reads like a press release from her agent. And she’s “friendly with Martha”!