I was recently alerted, via a reader, to the most hilariously over-the-top bad review I’ve ever received. For posterity’s sake, here’s the excerpt in full:
…the evening’s major offense [was] Timothy Andres’s “Crashing Through Fences” for piccolo, glockenspiel, and drums, a brain-damaging assault on listeners’ delicate hearing and sound-center processing apparati. This terroristic thought experiment in cognitive dissonance and shock would’ve been best left as such. As it was, its performance did more than simply produce headaches; it made more than one listener disoriented and distressed. Andres’s technique was simple: Juxtapose soft and subtle high-kHz sounds with unpredictably occurring percussions most reminiscent of random gunshots. In an era in which terror is no figment, one hopes that malevolent governments don’t get hold of Andres’s score, and that he doesn’t receive a contract from the C.I.A. to develop the musical equivalent of waterboarding torture devices.
If you’re reading this, and you’re from the CIA, call me and we’ll work out a licensing deal? You have my number.
Wow!!!
wait, someone needs to show this guy that Jason Eckhardt torture piece that JACK premiered on the SONiC festival.
I know! And I can think of literally 100 pieces off the top of my head more CIA-worthy. But I suppose it’s a matter of taste. My room 101 contains the Franck violin sonata.
I heard Crashing Through and liked it, as can be seen from the blog post spammed above. No one in my sight was either disoriented or distressed. Does “more than one” mean 2 ? And what were the signs of this malady?
I hope the CIA takes up the offer; it would be a welcome move towards a more humane approach to interrogation.
I was sitting in back of a couple of little girls who were caused to jump. To make little girls jump was very much my intention.
Looks like Cheney / Perry found their way into classical music review now, but maybe ignorance paired with a bad sense of irony is just en vogue this season. I am not a trained musician so I wouldn’t know how to describe my appreciation for Crashing through Fences. But here’s what I will do. Adding “shy and mighty” to my Christmas gift list giving for my family. My counter-terrorism strategy.
Thank you Andreas, that’s so very sweet!
Well, now I know why it’s called The Brooklyn RAIL…
rail
verb
intransitive verb
to revile or scold in harsh, insolent, or abusive language
You know, a family friend used to run the CIA, Timo.
I’ll see what I can set up for you.