B.H. Haggin - 100th Birthday
david...@my-deja.com
"Music on Records" (1938) was, I believe, the first general "guide" to
classical records published in book form. Because of a certain degree
of controversy surrounding the value of his various books and other
writings (based on a simple search of this forum in deja.news), I think
it relevant to include here a short personal note preceded by some
excerpts from a description of Haggin's critical method - and the
effect of reading Haggin - which appear in Robert Garis' book
"Following Balanchine":
"The music critic of the Nation from the mid-thirties to the mid-
fifties, Haggin brought the assertiveness, the aggressiveness, the
competitiveness of the act of critical judgment to a strength and
unremittingness that I hadn't encountered anywhere else. And in his
seriousness, his power of intellect, he entirely - or so it seemed at
the time - removed all taint of the merely aggressive or assertive from
the process. With Haggin criticism was a matter of the utmost public
urgency. And his anger (which at that time I didn't consciously hear in
his writing, although I must have responded to it with alert intuition)
was the anger of the righteous, if there ever has been such a thing in
the world... Haggin meant business, serious public business. He didn't
simply leave his seat in disapproval, he fought back. He identified and
attacked his critical enemies by name, and he identified their
disqualifications by name - their inability to hear what was palpably
to be heard, their vulgarity, their log-rolling, fantasy spinning,
system-mongering....
Haggin was not only a fighter, he was a teacher, the best I have ever
known. In his music criticism I had already encountered, and been
converted to, a mode of dealing with art as if one were following a
mind thinking. In this mode, which has remained central with me ever
since, one conceives of oneself as making contact with a mind that is
carrying on a line of expressive thinking by making choices between the
various directions in which its thinking might move....
Haggin's conception of the artist as a choice-making mind embodied in a
medium had further implications about what made art interesting. For
Haggin the most important kind of artist seemed to be the kind who
made, to put it as plainly as possible, a lot of choices....
In this way of experiencing art - and I am taking for granted that it
applies to literature as well as to music - the artist is seen as
making choices all the time; but some of these choices have a dramatic
power of unexpectedness that makes them into events. Identifying events
is of course the key process in understanding art, and it rests on the
primary assumption underlying the whole concept: that you can derive
(and that all people seriously and sensitively interested in an art will
certainly derive) a secure sense of the normal choices available to an
artist, a sense of the kind of sentences the artist usually makes at
this juncture or that - a sense of the good activity of a good mind. In
the framework of a sense of good ordinary procedure, you derive
pleasure from recognizing that a particular choice just made by the
mind you are following is extraordinary. The upshot is that you not
only want to measure and judge the brilliance of such choices but that
the procedures of the art, and of the way you are following it, make
you able to judge them and to take pleasure in so doing. In this way
your participation in what Haggin would call the "operation" of the
artist's mind combines judgment with pleasure....
I once showed a section of this book to someone who knew both Haggin
and me well, and he claimed that I hadn't found my true subject, which
was my difficulty in gaining independence from Haggin. I don't agree
that that is my subject, but, as the old lady said, "How can I tell
what I think till I see what I say?" Maybe that's what I've been saying
all along."
A personal note:
Although almost twenty years have past since our last meeting and with
more than thirteen years since his death, the sheer force of Haggin's
presence and character still remain with me, and not just the books on
the shelf.
He was once asked by my wife whether he felt he had some obligation to
"help" the young, beginning, artist, Haggin's negative response was
immediate and very emphatic. He explained that the artist, having
placed his art out to be judged, deserves (and the public deserves) to
have that work judged by an informed critic paying careful attention to
what was then being produced by the artist, no matter the consequences
- at various times Haggin called this keeping the critical eye on the
subject - and not with the "log-rolling, fantasy-spinning, system-
mongering" which characterizes so much of musical or other criticism.
The sheer quality of his writing and the intellectual breadth of his
criticism is something which I very much miss.
I am certainly aware that others might find his writings too harsh or
too limited (which might involve not including or disparaging their
"favorites") - although I should mention that part of the delight in re-
reading Haggin's writings is to find those specific instances in which
he did find things of value in certain performances of artists whose
work, for the most part, he didn't like.
I still find that whenever I listen to a live performance
or to a new or old recording, I try to employ the critical method
outlined above, so eloquently, by Professor Garis. I, too, found a
"Listener's Musical Companion" who continues to assist me on my way to
the enjoyment of music. For that I am grateful. For that I wish to
celebrate the centenary of his birth.
David Mendes
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Matthew B. Tepper
critic whose qualities are all-too-easily forgotten in these days of Joseph
Horowitz-style revisionism.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
"Compassionate Conservatism?" * "Tight Slacks?" * "Jumbo Shrimp?"
MT
critic whose qualities are all-too-easily forgotten in these days of
Joseph Horowitz-style revisionism.>>
Yes, a great critic who wrote with passion and a matchless command of
invective; but, for me, his critical faculties are seriously put in
doubt by his idolatry of Toscanini. It's a little more than a deaf
spot... How could the guy who so understood Schnabel, Lipatti, Szigeti,
and Cliburn fall for the Toscanini scam?
Best wishes to all for the coming year, Next Economy and all, buy
umbrellas etc...
MrT
Don Drewecki
Honestly, I thought I was the only person in this newsgroup who
remembered the centennial of B. H. Haggin, so I am glad to see I'm not.
Haggin was an ENORMOUS influence on me in my teenage years, and I had
the pleasure of meeting him on three occasions.
So, 2000 marks the centenaries of The Philadelphia Orchestra, Aaron
Copland, and B. H. H., all of whom made such an impact on my life.
Thanks, David, for your thoughts.
--
Don Drewecki
<dre...@rpi.edu>
Don Drewecki
Actually, if I recall correctly, B.H.H. died on May 28th, 1987. The New
York Times got his death date wrong -- and inserted two paragraphs into
Tim Page's obituary without his knowledge or approval.
--
Don Drewecki
<dre...@rpi.edu>
Matthew B. Tepper
>
>Actually, if I recall correctly, B.H.H. died on May 28th, 1987. The New
>York Times got his death date wrong -- and inserted two paragraphs into
>Tim Page's obituary without his knowledge or approval.
What was in those paragraphs? Perhaps something relating to Joe Horowitz'
revisionism?
Edward A. Cowan
> How could the guy who so understood Schnabel, Lipatti, Szigeti,
> and Cliburn fall for the Toscanini scam?
What "scam"? For Haggin, AT's performances fulfilled an ideal that
Haggin had apparently cherished for a very long time. To be sure, as
Haggin himself wrote, his earliest conducting hero was -- Willem
Mengelberg! And then Haggin discovered AT and plainly heard the
difference. (Not that I condemn Mengelberg: I have lots and lots of his
recordings.) Haggin's writings on Toscanini show the difference between
a conviction and a prejudice. (An example: Before there was a Toscanini
recording of Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" symphony, Haggin's
recommendations for recordings included Furtwängler and Ormandy...)
--
E.A.C.
MT
<<What "scam"? For Haggin, AT's performances fulfilled an ideal that
Haggin had apparently cherished for a very long time. To be sure, as
Haggin himself wrote, his earliest conducting hero was -- Willem
Mengelberg! And then Haggin discovered AT and plainly heard the
difference. (Not that I condemn Mengelberg: I have lots and lots of his
recordings.) Haggin's writings on Toscanini show the difference between
a conviction and a prejudice. (An example: Before there was a Toscanini
recording of Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" symphony, Haggin's
recommendations for recordings included Furtwängler and Ormandy...>>
Allow me to give some perspective on what I called the "scam". First,
for a long time I was a devoted Toscaninian, partly because of Haggin's
writings and partly because as I was growing up there were a lot of
Toscanini records at home. Slowly, I started becoming disenchanted with
an approach that, it seemed to me (and today I am totally convinced) to
disembowel the music of its communicative power, of its spontaneity, a
steamroller approach that I now see as one-dimensional and sterile. I
have also come to see Toscanini's performances as something very ugly --
great music-making is never ugly.
At the same time, the recordings of Furtwaengler, Monteux, Beecham,
Mitropoulos, Walter, Klemperer and other conductors of Toscanini's era
started to become more attractive; I realized that accepting the
Toscanini approach had deprived me of some of the greatest orchestral
recordings ever.
So, when I open Haggin's book (the last edition) and read that no-one
comes near Toscanini in this or that (pretty much in everything,
according to B.H.) I am torn between chuckling and grinding my teeth. It
would be difficult not to conclude that Haggin was part of the Toscanini
cult.
I hope my comment was understood as a personal opinion and not as a
judgment of the value of AT or his interpretations. Obviously, he has a
huge following. But I no longer feel the need to go back to his
interpretations (except the 1940 Missa Solemnis, which I find
indispensable).
You can call me a recovering Toscaninian...
Regards,
MrT
Don Drewecki
The paragraphs inserted by The NYTimes had to do with Haggin's attitude
towards modern music, and, attacking the work of other critics,
sometimes violently. At least, that's what I recall hearing at the
memorial service for him at the 92nd Street Y in November 1987.
--
Don Drewecki
<dre...@rpi.edu>
mike gray
YMHA in a cab with Max Wilcox.
Haggin had many, many friends who looked after him in his later years -
some of us would visit him when at 20 West 64th we came to New York. He
was invariably kind and hospitable, always providing sherry and ice
cream; but there were certain subjects - mainly his departures from
magazines he'd been associated with over the years - that would summon
total recall of slights, letters, calls and encounters twenty, thirty
and forty years before. Some of us may recall the old apartment at 110
Seaman Avenue way up on the West Side - it appeared to be lit with a
single light bulb, but had enough light to see it was filled with
various books, papers and other material.
It's a great tragedy that B.H.'s literary executor, Tom Hathaway, died
in October 1992 without putting into place plans to publish many of
Haggin's "memory-holed" journalism from the 1920s and 1930s - all the
books, beginning with Music in the Nation, but certainly the later
collections, reflect Haggin's revised ideas of who and what was good and
not so good in music - but even as late at the middle 50s, he was
expressing approval (quickly supressed) of music like Orff's Carmina
Burana.
A more complex - and certainly funnier - man in person than in print.
Too bad he couldn't have lived a lot longer.
Mike Gray
Edward A. Cowan
> A more complex - and certainly funnier - man in person than in print.
> Too bad he couldn't have lived a lot longer.
In print, Haggin often came across as quarrelsome on arcane matters
that, in the end, only he seemed to care about. The fixation on
Toscanini, for instance, led him to recommend *only* AT's recordings of
certain works (e.g., Berlioz's "Harold in Italy," Dvorak's "New World"
symphony), while other admirable performances went altogether
unmentioned by him. There seemed to be about Haggin an atmosphere of
"the voice of one crying in the wilderness". To be sure, even the terse
reviews of his late years sent one (fuming!) back to the music itself.
I would always recommend his book, _Music for the Man Who Enjoys
Hamlet_, even despite its lack of PC in the title, or perhaps because of
it <g>, to a beginner in classical music. I even have a copy of the
original edition with its little cardboard ruler with which to find the
quoted passages in the 78rpm recordings recommended by Haggin.
I have missed him for many years now...
--
E.A.C.