When you’ve been a critic as long as I have, you learn to cherish comments like this one (below). It’s in response to my recent review of “Elijah.”
“This reviewer follows the general rule of all reviewers: they are parasites with high verbal skills. This one feels he is a musicologist. I am not one, but I do know that Mendellssohn was responsible in his time for bringing Bach’s oratorios and the oratorio form back to life when it was generally viewed as a dead form. It is merely a different form. He cites three composers whose main compositions were operas, and then disparages Mendelssohn. I sang my first Elijah solos with John in the 70’s, as other of Mendelssohn’s oratorios, and to compare them with operatic composers is ridiculous. Handel wrote over 40 operas until they became old school, and he started writing oratorios. Bach’s oratorios were gathering dust until Mendelssohn brought them back to public view, and wrote his own. The tradition is very evident in his oratorios, and yet his lyric writing surpasses anything Bach wrote. Only Mendelssohn could have written what he did, just as Bach and Handel are their own creators. As for text, I doubt few libretti could ever stand up as prose, save the few that used Shakespeare plays as their basis. Verdi only wrote one major “oratorio” in his elder years, after many years of honing his talent. Mendelssohn died at a very young age. If the reviewer would have sung as many different oratorios by different older and contemporary composers as I and others have, including Dave Brubeck, he might have a more balanced perspective of the oratorio as a particular musical form, never meant to be opera, and never meant to be salon music as Chopin. PLEASE, spare us, Lord, from the ignorant tongues of reviewers.”
classical life 
Wellkum to my club.
_____
Thank you. Good company.
As much as I love Mendelssohn, we part company when he suggests that Mendelssohn’s lyricism is greater than Bach’s. I’ve played Elijah several times in my career and find much of it to be tedious slogging.
Under any circumstances, the review was of a performance, not an analysis of the work itself. As a theory teacher once pointed out to me, the masterworks nearly play themselves, where the minor works need meticulous attention to all the details to be successful. I’m sure the Philadelphia Orchestra makes the piece riveting. I’ve never found it to be so…
Oh, hahahahahaha.
I think I’ve gotten a few “you are a tin-earred moron” comments at my blog and at SFCV. But as someone who has actually sung a huge amount of choral music, I left a comment at the Register agreeing 100% with Tim about Elijah. I mean, singing it might well be more fun than listening to it, but I don’t plan to take any chances.
Thanks, Lisa. Us parasites have to stick together.
ABSOLUTELY.
Signed,
Fellow Parasite and Fake Musicologist (hey, two years in a musicology grad program must count for something)
Yeah, that’s the thing. My credentials also speak for themselves. Does the commenter think I’m just making this stuff up? And, of course, many credentialed musicians have told me they agree with my assessment of ‘Elijah.’ The commenter doesn’t have to agree with me, but I have valid points.
Absolutely! So he loves “Elijah”……fine with me, as long as I don’t have to listen to it again.
Tim,
The comment from Parasite Boy was rude, foolish and simply juvenile. The comment completely undermined whatever point he was trying to make. (The tired, old saw about how critics aren’t performers, etc. We’ve heard it 1,000 times, ho hum.)
People can agree or disagree about the merits of Elijah. You made some excellent statements, and I may not have agreed with them.
There is simply no call for such childish language.
Re: Parasite Boy, well I guess his mother never taught him any manners.
David S.