… or our ears change. Or something.
John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles pleased most critics when it opened at the Metropolitan Opera at the end of 1991. I wasn’t among them; in a review for the New Republic I described the opera as “nowhere music,” a miscellaneous pastiche of Romantic and modernist styles. I recently listened again to a recording of the work and liked it a great deal more.
The quote is from Alex Ross, and I am thankful that he is willing to write and admit that he heard things differently. And this is exactly why I refuse to immediately say something is awful. I just don’t always know for sure. And maybe it’s not for me to know. Maybe it’s for a future generation. Maybe I should just listen — or play — and do that to the best of my ability. I can say, “this doesn’t really appeal to me,” but I’m really uncomfortable most of the time saying something as plainly as, “this is junk.”
Yeah, okay. You will catch me say that on occasion. If you can read my mind.
