Matthew Guerrieri's Globe review of the Orion String Quartet with clarinetist David Krakauer struck me as old school when I first read it. Perhaps refreshingly so. Guerrieri sticks mostly to the not terribly obvious facts and reports events, leaving any notions of "thumbs up or thumbs down" criticism to glide unseen as more of subtle undercurrent than damnation, leaving one to wonder if one could read into each comment what one, in fact, had read into it. For example:
"Del Tredici's neo-Romanticism nearly forgoes the prefix - four-fifths of the piece would fit the Brahmsian aesthetic of Boston a century ago - and the music's titular Hungarian color has the authenticity of a Gypsy-themed Hollywood production number."
I find this, and Guerrieri's criticism in general, a delight to read, but I usually wonder what else I'm being served with my impartial journalistic stew: is it light venom or merely spicy prose? I, for one, plan to keep reading for clues.
Read all of Captured in Orion's Orbit.
P.S. - One doesn't read the word "Brahmsian" very often, so I don't often have the chance to say that it makes me imagine Brahms as a friend of Gidget, the only person who can get away with calling him "Brahmsie."
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