»Musik, die man stinken hört« – Abwege der Musikkritik

With too sharp a pen

There’s critical, there’s brutal, and then there’s the opinion of colleagues. Musicians, critics and other experts are not known for holding back. And sometimes you can really feel the pleasure they take in tearing into their victims. Be it Hugo Wolf on Johannes Brahms, Rossini on Weber, or Debussy on Mendelssohn – the criticism can be venomous. But it is the critic Eduard Hanslick who takes the biscuit with his verdict on Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, to which the title of this concert refers. The criticised compositions are contrasted with these withering critics. The obvious misjudgements of the detractors gives this literary concert evening a special appeal, with plenty of opportunities for reflective grinning, or even vigorous, bewildered laughter.