The veteran polymath Richard Dyer who reviewed music, film and literature in the Boston Globe for half a century died today at Mass General Hospital.
Tim Page writes: ‘He was a master — one of those critics who showed the rest of us how it could be done.’
The US violinist has posted this message on…
The Dutch conductor, ousted after a six-year spell…
English National Opera has rolled out plans for…
Laura Samuel, Leader of the BBC Scottish Symphony…
Session expired
Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.
I read his books and essays on film decades ago as a post-grad. A life well lived.
I think you are confusing the Boston critic with the English film writer Richard Dyer, who wrote a number of books on film. I’m not sure Boston’s Richard Dyer wrote any books at all.
A thoughtful and perceptive writer on music, whose perspectives on piano performance in particular meant a great deal to me back when he wrote for the Boston Globe. The news of his passing surprised me – just saw him a few weeks ago, serving on the jury for the concerto competition of the Foundation For Chinese Performing Arts. I imagine his judgment helped them pick the right pianist, too. Thanks, Dick!
The “critic” who once disrespectfully wrote of Yevgeny Kissin that the pianist ought to take time off to learn gardening (in order to deepen what the critic found to be wanting musicality and maturity).
He was doing his job. Critics aren’t hired to be artists’ publicists or sugar-coat their opinions with bland language. I hope Kissin took him up on the suggestion.
Indeed 🙂
He also (imo less perceptively) once wrote that he wondered whether Alfred Brendel picked at his plate as a child ….
Sounds like very sound advice, tbh.
I greatly enjoyed reading his reviews in the Globe when I lived in Boston about 30 years ago. Part of a great group of Boston musical personalities.
I think of Richard Dyer as the gold standard of what a critic should strive to be. His knowledge was immense, his insights deep, and his love of what he was doing obvious. He had strong opinions and they were (mostly) honest. As a long-term Thursday night subscriber to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, we were always at the same concerts that he reviewed, and I rarely disagreed with what he wrote. Almost all the time (though not always), he seemed to be an honest broker and his reviews were 99.8% reliable. But every now and then one could see personal bias unfortunately slip into what became extra-musical assessments (Exhibit A: Maxim Vengerov, who has never returned to perform in Boston since Richard Dyer slammed him inappropriately and undeservedly, even making a snide remark about Vengerov’s modest height – which was a stain on Dyer’s otherwise impressive legacy).
But almost always, one could take Dyer’s perspectives to the bank. His enormous shoes were never filled by his Boston Globe successor unfortunately.
Farewell, Richard Dyer. RIP.
He was right about Vengerov’s crudity though his height is of course irrelevant.
Taste is surely individual. For some of us, Vengerov is the greatest living violinist. The last recital I heard from Vengerov in 2022 was nothing short of spectacular.
While Vengerov has boycotted Boston after being slammed by Richard Dyer, he has recently been appearing in recitals in Worcester (20+ years later) and will be back again in November 2024.
Vengerov and Polina Osetinskaya are scheduled to give a recital in Boston’s Symphony Hall in November.
Since engaging Richard on the jury of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001 I wanted him to be a permanent jury member for all subsequent competitions as well as part of the team of jurors who traveled around the world with us for the screening auditions. With his encyclopedic knowledge and superb musicianship he was a model of what all jury members should be like. And he was a delight to be with – charming, brilliant and with a great sense of humor. He was a true friend that I will miss him very much.
The Boston Musical Intelligencer has a wonderful tribute to Richard Dyer written by David Moran, a colleague of Richard’s, along with touching comments from so many musicians and music organizers that Richard Dyer impacted. I highly recommend that anyone interested in Richard Dyer takes a look:
https://www.classical-scene.com/2024/09/20/richard-dyer-1941-2024/
As Richard’s nephew, with the same name. It was a great ode to my uncle after the decades of work, passion, and love he had for classical music and the arts, and he loved sharing that.
I knew him well, and cannot agree that he was supremely knowledgeable, objective, or fair. But HE certainly thought so, as he was quite full of himself, and supremely arrogant. He never lost an opportunity to write about himself – somehow the artist he was reviewing always had something to do with him. He also promoted his friends: one of Dyer’s protégés (who became a prominent critic) was a buddy he had met at a gay bar on Boston’s Beacon Hill. And a rather mediocre pianist that Dyer heavily promoted in Boston (unsuccessfully) was a close friend of that buddy. And they both conspired in their Kissin-bashing, but ended up eating their own words – once they put their prejudices aside and actually listened to him. With their self-proclaimed “piano expertise” they attempted to bully the public to focus their attention on Dubravka Tomsic and Pierre-Laurent Aimard – again unsuccessfully, but that clearly exposes their taste-level. Dyer’s agenda (“My taste is THE taste”) was all too obvious, and extremely unprofessional.
I think I know which pianist of whom you speak. Were his initials RS? I attended one of his recitals based on Dyer’s reviews and was underwhelmed.
I also personally observed him leave a recital at intermission and proceed to bash it in the next day’s Globe – including performances that took place after intermission.
No, it was a her…
What a wonderful homophobic rant from Ludwig’s Van. Thank you for sharing.