Israeli music critic dies
RIPThe veteran music critic of the Yediot Acharonot newspaper, Dr Hanoch Ron, died last week. He was 88.
Hanoch was feared early on for his fierce personal prejudices.
But he mellowed with age, like so many others.
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He was the music critic of Yedioth Achronot, not Haaretz. To the best of my recollection he was a fierce critic of Zubin Mehta at a time when the orchestra did indeed seem quite bored on the stage rehashing the same mainstream repertoire over and over again. The orchestra plays brilliantly in recent years with some modest improvement in reoertoire but unfortunately noone writes about their concerts any more.
You’re quite right – my mistake
He was the worst music critic in Israel. A real damage to our culture. May he rest in Hell.
Many years ago I attended a concert in which a young musician gave her Israeli debut. I already heard her abroad and knew how good she was, but in Israel she was yet unknown. Her performance was first rate, and the crowd reacted accordingly. The day after, I read Mr. Ron’s review. It was extremely negative, having nothing to do with my own experience. A decade or so later she was already very well known. She returned to Israel but had a bad performance, making many mistakes. Perhaps she was not well. The crowd noticed, and gave her a polite reaction, but nothing more. The following day Mr. Ron heaped superlatives on the artists and criticised the crowd for beeing provincial and uneducated. Never bothered to read him again.