CONCERT REVIEW GUIDE

Basic Guidelines

Due date is one week after the concert.

Turn in the review:

• at class or

• My office door, Meek 237

Attach an original concert program (write your name on it) to your review.

Specifications:

• At least 1 page in length, typed, double-spaced, 1" margins top, bottom and sides

• Name, ID#, Course Name, and Section Number (single spaced) in a top header at 0.5" or on a separate title page
  

• Font: Times New Roman or similar readable font, 10 - 12 point size (no smaller, no larger)

WHAT DO I WRITE?

The opening paragraph:

Briefly describe the event (type of music, type of ensemble, date, time, location, purpose, etc.). In the opening sentences or even in the title, you might summarize the general experience. Avoid naming all of the titles of compositions in this paragraph.

The bulk of the review -
questions that you might address

• What about the experience was new or different for you?

• What impressed you about this live music experience and why?

• Which selection intrigued you the most? Explain what it was about the music that intrigued you.

• If there was a selection that you did not enjoy, why didn't you enjoy it?

• What was your opinion about the performer's presentation of the music?

• If the piece is a new work what is your opinion of the writing of the composition?

• How did the aspect of live performance affect your perspective on the music? (what were the benefits?)

• Your conclusion should summarize your overall impression of the concert.

Concert review style suggestions that will make your review more professional

• Avoid the use of the word "song" when you may really intend the word "piece" or "composition".

• Name the title when you're talking about a composition and put its name in italics.

• Here is an example of an efficient way to name the composer and title of a composition: "David Carlisle's composition Mad Cow effectively employs an offbeat combination of Chinese cymbals, copper pipes, drums, and African instruments."

• If you comment on specific people (i.e. the conductor or soloists) give their names for clarity.

• If you review a performance of mine, please do not address me in the first person. Please give my name in the third person, more like a newspaper review.

• Avoid the use of the subject "I". Instead use "the author", and please don't overuse it.

Click the following links to help your writing:

"How To Write a Thesis Statement"

"Paragraphs and Topic Sentences"

Read the San Francisco Chonicle concert review below to get an idea of style and content. You can also read other reviews from the New York Times.

A REVIEW FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:

Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic      Friday, September 14, 2001

The cathartic power of music -- to howl, to grieve and ultimately to console -- has never seemed so miraculous.

Mahler's Sixth Symphony, probably his darkest and most wrenching creation, filled Davies Symphony Hall on Wednesday night. And in this strong, piercing performance by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, grateful listeners heard our pain expressed, probed and perhaps, to some small extent, soothed.

It was only a chance of scheduling that brought the Mahler Sixth to audiences in the wake of this week's horrific tragedies. The week's concerts are being recorded as the first installment of a complete Mahler cycle that the Symphony will be issuing and distributing itself (next week's performances of the First Symphony will continue the project).

But it would be hard to imagine a more apt musical embodiment of the emotions that have convulsed the nation and the world during these dark days. There is a vein of grim terror running through the Sixth Symphony, alleviated only briefly by stretches of intimacy and lyric beauty.

It's there in the broad first movement, with its relentless marches propelled -- cruelly, as if at gunpoint -- by the timpani and percussion. It's there in sublimated form in the acerbic scherzo, all abrasive rhythms and ghoulish jokes.

And in the finale -- whose dramatic and intricate writing is twice bludgeoned into silence by a massive hammer blow -- Mahler left a chilling evocation of the power of fate to cut life short.

How immediate these connections might have felt under other circumstances is hard to say. But certainly Wednesday's urgent, cohesive performance touched the heart with a sense of complete pertinence.

In a few eloquent spoken words, Thomas invoked Mahler's desire to "look unflinchingly at the hostile forces he believed were rising in the world." The performance that followed made good on his promise to play "with all of our hearts and all of our spirits."

With the violins separated at the front of the stage, Mahler's dense textures came through expansively and clearly. The violins, under new concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, played with renewed vigor and sweep.

There was playing of dark, muscular menace from the brass, particularly acting principal horn Robert Ward and principal trumpeter Glenn Fischthal. The percussion, led by Jack Van Geem and timpanist David Herbert, laid down the rhythmic law with a frightening iron will.

And under Thomas' resourceful guidance, the true horror of Mahler's vision stood abundantly revealed. Huge musical structures crumbled into nothing; the human spirit struggled for the most evanescent reprieve from evil and oppression.

Even the temporarily reassuring lyricism of the slow movement seemed tinged with sorrow.

Sadly, even in the most somber moments, human folly carries on, as exemplified by the audience member who greeted the orchestra's rendition of the national anthem with a cry of "Play ball!" that ruptured the shared moment of silence.

But not even that stunningly inappropriate jest could weaken the sense of community, or the communicative power of art, that suffused the hall on this occasion.

ORCHESTRA: SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY

E-mail Joshua Kosman at jkosman@sfchronicle.com