In 1996, in a piece for Commentary, which has, as many of you know, been consistently covering itself in glory throughout its existence (see here, for example), the culture critic Terry Teachout wrote:
As for the continuing artistic vitality of [then Lincoln Center artistic director John] Rockwell’s avant-garde, it may be found in the following New York Times report of a festival non-event:
The Kronos Quartet has canceled its performance of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2, saying that its players are no longer up to the physical demands of the uninterrupted six-hour work. The performance…was to have been the centerpiece of a Feldman retrospective at the Lincoln Center Festival ’96. In a statement released yesterday, David Harrington, the group’s first violinist and artistic director, said that “in our rehearsals we first discovered that we are now unable to perform the work for purely physical reasons.”
Taken together with the attendance figures for the Lincoln Center Festival ’96, this makes as pithy an epitaph for the American musical avant-garde as one could hope for.
Gotta love that “as one could hope for.” And also gotta presume that any musician or ensemble bowing out of a performance of Wagner wouldn’t elicit nearly as much of a haw-haw-haw from Terry.
Not too many years later, the exemplary Mode label released an audio-only DVD…of the New York-based Flux Quartet (an admittedly younger crew than the stalwarts of Kronos)…performing Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2, quite magnificently.
And Mode is still, after all these years, very much in business. I was reminded of Teachout’s inapt smugness while enjoying one of Mode’s latest atrocities, a video/audio DVD of the complete string quartets of Iannis Xenakis, in fantastic 5.1 Surround (Dolby AND DTS!), as played by the much-acclaimed Jack Quartet.
The visual presentation is spare, but not unimaginative. The quartet is sometimes depicted in color, wearing casual dress; other times, as above, playing Xenakis’ 1956–62 composition “ST‑4/1,080262,” they’re shown in formal dress, and in black and white, to boot. The point finally is that it’s unobtrusive while remaining…interesting. And as for the music, it’s mind-blowing. Intense, difficult, sonically explorational in ways that only Xenakis could make it. Nuts.
Seriously—for the most part, I have a great deal of respect for Teachout. (Yeah, his “nothing to see here folks, move along” anti-apologia for Birth of a Nation was ten different kinds of nonsense, but you had to give him some credit for trying to take one for the team, as it were.) But as a committed avant-garde sympathizer, I’m always glad to see those who think they’re tamping down the dirt on the grave they’ve mentally dug for such fare proven so wrong.Because what proves them more wrong than high-tech, free-market commodities such as this one?
My thought about Teachout is that he is more generous and open minded that the usual contributor to the Murdoch millieu. You could say the same about John Simon, who in the decades he served as “National Review” film critic was easily the most intelligent and thoughtful voice in a very undistinguished literary section. I can’t help comparing him to the long time Commentary film critic Richard Grenier. Simon liked “The Official Story,” but Grenier used his review to defend the military dictatorship whose actions form the background of the movie. I also remember Grenier’s review of “The Empire of the Sun,” which accused Spielberg of being a traitor. Simon was never this kind of ideologue.
Of course, Simon had other vices. To a superficial reader one can find his waspish, occasionally vitriolic tone a sign of integrity. After all, most movies are mediocre, and an alarming number of these win Academy Awards. But while one may respect him knocking down “Taxi Driver” several knotches (and this is undercut by his belief that “Rocky” was a better movie), often his reviews of movies such as “A Woman Under the Influence” or “The Spirit of the Beehive” or “Annie Hall,” show violent hostility and blank incomprehension.
I only intermittingly read Teachout. Did you read his piece on Hitchcock in the February Commentary? Speaking personally for myself if I sought to argue that “Vertigo” was overrated, I would at least take more seriously the arguments of those who would strongly disagree. Compated to critics like Rosenbaum, Hoberman or Klawans, he doesn’t have the same sort of knowledge or curiosity about film. Admittedly, it would be hard to write about Iranian cinema for journals whose main question about the country is “When do we start bombing it?”
PS: One other anecdote about conservative film criticism. In “The Closing of the American Mind” Allan Bloom unsuprisingly turns to the movies in discussing how everything went to the dogs in the sixties. Surprisingly, his special target of criticism isn’t “The Graduate” or “Bonnie and Clyde.” Nor does he go further afield to denounce such movies as “The Battle of Algiers” or “Weekend” or “Blow Up”. No, he singles out “A Man for all Seasons.” Apparently it encourages people to be indignant about gross injustice: I mean, you oppose one judicial murder, and you never see the end of it.
My foremost exposure to Teachout’s output is his Friday drama section in WSJ, whose greatest value is the attention he brings to regional productions in Chicago, San Diego, Washington and Hartford– what other mainstream publication encourages that? And he is generous– writes beguilingly about stagework that SOMEONE should be seeing, even if most of us can’t make the trips. But his idiosyncratic view of our major dramatists– dismissive of Tennessee Williams, skeptical of Arthur Miller, and gaga over (gulp!) William Inge– indicates a drift I’ve seen in other contemporary theater critics (i.e. the VOICE’s M. Feingold): writing about work that is less-and-less attended to, they nurse
willful heterodoxy into an aesthetic of one, as if to keep themselves amused.
I adore the Kronos Quartet take on Eno’s music for “Bang On A Can.”
Like I stated before, Simon is one of my favorite critics. And his ideology always seemed center-left to me, except when he wrongly maligned Hendrix for his version of the Star Spangled Banner.
Nice to see a mention of Xenakis on this blog. Time to add “and Committed Avant-Garde Sympathizer” to the blog’s tagline?
I have the Ives Ensemble’s recording (on Hat Hut) of Feldman’s second string quartet. Also a tremendous recording.
“Admittedly, it would be hard to write about Iranian cinema for journals whose main question about the country is ‘When do we start bombing it?’ ”
Goddamn, is this shit tiresome.
Moving on. My primary experience with Teachout is this fantastic essay about the pitfalls of political art:
http://www.incharacter.org/article.php?article=32
@bill: In fairness to partisan, while Norman Podhoretz may not be Daniel Pipes, the journal in question has been known to wax somewhat bellicose on the Iran question.
That Teachout essay is a peach though.
One other anecdote about conservative film criticism. In “The Closing of the American Mind” Allan Bloom unsuprisingly turns to the movies in discussing how everything went to the dogs in the sixties. Surprisingly, his special target of criticism isn’t “The Graduate” or “Bonnie and Clyde.” Nor does he go further afield to denounce such movies as “The Battle of Algiers” or “Weekend” or “Blow Up”. No, he singles out “A Man for all Seasons.” Apparently it encourages people to be indignant about gross injustice: I mean, you oppose one judicial murder, and you never see the end of it.
Bloom’s book is more interesting—and crazier—than even a lot of its admirers like to get into. His whole theory that Louis Armstrong’s version of “Mack the Knife” heralded a decadent phase of American culture, because we innocent U.S. citizens were too wide-eyed to really “get” the song’s corruscating irony (or something along those lines—it’s been a while since I’ve read the thing) is kind of a trip. I keep meaning to read Bellow’s roman à clef about Bloom, who was a fascinating character to say the least.
Don’t urinate us please.
Yeah, Glenn. For God’s sake.