Defending the Music
Michael Steinberg at the Boston Globe, 1964-1976
Edited by Susan Feder, Jacob Jahiel and Marc Mandel
First published 2026
609 pages, including index
With black & white illustrations
ISBN 9780197810217 (hardback), 9780197810248 (paperback); 9780197810224 (epub)
Oxford University Press
Michael Steinberg (1928-2009) was one of the finest writers about music I have encountered. He was especially noteworthy for his ability to communicate the essence of a piece or of a performance in a succinct essay. Oxford University Press has previously published three volumes of his essays: The Symphony (1995), The Concerto (1998), and Choral Masterworks (2005). All three volumes bear the same subtitle: A Listener’s Guide. Between them, they have certainly guided this listener. I purchased all three on separate holiday trips to the USA in the early 2000s and subsequently I have referred to them very frequently; indeed, I’ve quoted from them on quite a number of occasions when writing reviews for Musicweb. The contents of those three earlier collections were largely drawn from programme notes which Steinberg wrote for two of the USA’s leading orchestras: for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), whose programme annotator he was between 1976 and 1979; and for the San Francisco Symphony for whom he fulfilled a similar role from 1979 to 2000. This latest collection is rather different; it is a selection from his reviews – and other writings – during his time as music critic of the Boston Globe newspaper.
Steinberg’s second wife was the violinist Jorja Fleezanis (1952-2022); they met while both were working for the San Francisco Symphony. It should be noted that Ms Fleezanis was a considerable musician in her own right, serving as concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra from 1989-2009, prior to which she had been for eight years associate concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony. She also became an important figure in musical academic circles. It was her idea to publish a collection of her late husband’s writings for the Boston Globe; sadly, it proved to be such a substantial project that she died before it came to fruition. Instead, that task has been completed by three editors, all of whom are very appropriately qualified for the project. Marc Mandel was recruited by Steinberg in 1978 as his assistant at the BSO; Susan Feder was hired by Steinberg in 1979 as his assistant at the San Francisco Symphony; Jacob Jahiel had studied with Ms Fleezanis at Indiana University and, from 2017, he worked with her to collate and transcribe the Boston Globe material. None of this was digitized and, indeed, not all of the preserved material was in good condition; Jahiel had to transcribe it all by hand. I learned about how this volume came into being, and much else, from the most interesting Introduction, written by the editors. This gives the reader excellent context, not least in pointing out Michael Steinberg’s approach to his job in Boston. As he saw it, his role was about much more than simply reporting on the prestige musical events in Boston; rather, he saw himself as someone who should reflect and report on the musical life of the city. Thus, in these pages you will find many reviews and other pieces that deal with concerts, operatic performances and recitals given by leading artists and by the BSO. But you’ll also find fascinating pieces about some of the less high-profile musical endeavours in the city. There are also a fair number of out-of-town reports from places such as Carnegie Hall.
We should note that the reviews in this book were written to a deadline – indeed, a strict deadline of 12.30 am – so they were written under pressure (though you’d never know it). The reviews appeared on the morning after the performance. Another pressure was dictated by the varying amounts of space that the paper’s editorial team were able to allocate for the review in question. Finally, and crucially, these reviews were not written at a word processor or computer; they were hammered out on a typewriter; consequently, there was no scope for self-editing or revision. I think it’s essential to remind ourselves of these constraints, despite which Steinberg’s prose was invariably elegant, his reportage pertinent and well-informed, his analysis thorough (if sometimes space-limited) and his judgements properly evidenced. This is great, dare I say old-fashioned, musical journalism.
Sensibly, I think, the editors have decided upon a chronological approach rather than trying to impose any kind of thematic design to the contents. Thus, you’ll find a selection of Steinberg’s pieces from each of the twelve years of his association with the Boston Globe. I have also approached the book chronologically; in doing so you get a fine feel for Boston’s musical life over a period of a dozen years and you also get a sense of Steinberg’s development as a critic. In the future, though, I expect that when I go back to the book – as I’m certain I will – I’ll dip into it.
One more comment before I cover some of the contents of the book. You may wonder at the title of the book: Defending the Music. The editors explain that Jorja Fleezanis frequently mentioned her husband’s “self-described stance as “counsel for the defence,” that is, as an advocate for music and all things relevant to it.” When I read this, I couldn’t help but wonder what Steinberg would have had to say about the present well-publicised goings-on at the Boston Symphony and the highly controversial decision not to renew the rolling contract of Music Director Andris Nelsons beyond the 2026-27 season.
Steinberg had previous experience as a critic at the time he joined the Boston Globe but not, I think, of operating to such a demanding schedule. This anthology begins with his debut review for the paper and we can see that he leapt into the arena fully formed. He opened his Boston career on 1 February, 1964 with a review of the first performance in the city of Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony, a work commissioned by the Boston Symphony and the Koussevitzky Foundation for the orchestra’s 75th anniversary season (1955-56). Steinberg offers a fair-minded, balanced opinion of the work but, rightly, does not shirk from pointing out the work’s deficiencies, not least what he terms the “lava-flow of clichés” in the libretto, which Bernstein himself compiled. (I think I’m right in saying that the text has since been revised.)
Steinberg emerges from these pages as a fair, judicious critic, one who is always ready to point out positive features in either a work or a performance, though he does not shrink from reasoned criticism when it is warranted. Though he wrote a number of negative reviews, he rarely wrote a genuine “stinker” – at least, few are included here – but there are a couple to which the editors specifically draw attention. One is an early (December 1964) appraisal of the annual performance of Messiah by Boston’s venerable Handel and Haydn Society. Steinberg is not kind to three of the four soloists but he saves his main wrath for the conductor and for the edition of the score that was used. (He was much more enthusiastic about the Society’s December 1967 account of the work – in Mozart’s arrangement – under a different conductor.) The other negative review surprised me. It concerns a November 1969 performance of the Brahms Fourth symphony by the BSO under Carlo Maria Giulini. The opening is both delicious and arrestingly controversial: “If Danny Kaye or Victor Borge were to conduct a performance of the Brahms Fourth just like the one Carlo Maria Giulini conducted Friday afternoon in Symphony Hall, one so raging and overwrought….the audience would have been in stitches”. Now, Giulini is a conductor I’ve long admired and Steinberg’s evisceration of the performance took me aback. Interestingly, in a footnote, the editors comment that this performance of what was a “signature work” for Giulini came just three weeks after the conductor had set down the same work for EMI with the Chicago Symphony in a studio recording. They say that the BSO made available to them a recording of the Boston concert which “reveals that Giulini’s approach at this concert… was consistent – if by no means as polished – with the interpretation preserved in his Chicago Symphony recording”. It so happens that I have the Chicago recording in my collection so I reminded myself of it. Assuming the editors are correct in asserting that the BSO performance was “consistent” with the Chicago version – and I’m very ready to accept their word on that – then I simply don’t understand where Steinberg was coming from. Giulini’s recording of the symphony may not be the finest in my collection – for a start, the third movement is too deliberate for my taste – but overall, I think it’s pretty good; the first movement has drama and intensity, while the concluding passacaglia is often darkly powerful. I can’t agree with Steinberg’s judgement that Giulini’s way with the music was “raging and overwrought”, and I feel his verdict that the performance “…proceeded from nothing more uncommon than opportunism and meretricious vulgarity” is both extreme and unwarranted. But, of course, we all hear music differently and a review is an expression of opinion, albeit informed opinion. Subsequently, I discovered that my colleague Dominy Clements also admired the CSO recording (review).
As I was reading this book, the death was announced of Michael Tilson Thomas on 22 April. MTT was a regular conductor of the BSO in those days (appointed Assistant Conductor in 1969, he later became Principal Guest Conductor, holding that post until 1974) and so his name features several times; for example, in a review of a January 1971 programme which could fairly be described as eclectic, consisting as it did of Pérotin’s choral piece Sederunt principes (1199?), Stockhausen’s Punkte (1952) and Schumann’s ‘Rhenish’ Symphony. ‘Go, figure’ you might say, though Steinberg suggests that MTT at least made the juxtaposition of the first two pieces work, even if the Schumann performance disappointed. It was poignant to read an article, written just one year later, entitled ‘The Inevitable Future of Michael Tilson Thomas – Where Is This Brilliant Young Musician Going?’ At the time, there was much speculation that MTT might succeed William Steinberg as Music Director of the BSO (in the end, Seiji Ozawa was chosen). Steinberg offers a fascinating and judicious overview of MTT’s progress to date and whether or not he and the BSO would be a good fit. Steinberg is clearly an admirer of MTT, both personally and professionally, but, as ever with this writer, he summarises the pros and cons – the latter including the comment that the BSO players “would regard Thomas’s appointment with mixed feelings. Orchestras do not love him”. Steinberg’s overall evaluation is prescient, especially bearing in mind what MTT went on to achieve over the following five decades.
As I’ve observed, Steinberg was never afraid to express his views trenchantly – and to support them. This landed him in trouble at times. For example, some of his comments on the choice of music for the 1968 funeral of Robert Kennedy drew fire from a number of the Boston Globe’s Catholic readers; Steinberg defended himself firmly but very reasonably in the paper’s pages. At Christmas 1964, Henry B Cabot, the President of the Boston Symphony wrote a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, which the paper published. In this, it seems that Cabot took exception to Steinberg’s review of the BSO’s season-opening concert the previous September and his aforementioned assessment of the Handel and Haydn Society’s performance of Messiah in December. On 5 January 1965 Steinberg wrote a robust and well-argued defence of his right to express his opinions. I rather wish the editors had included the Cabot letter, though we can get a good flavour of what Cabot had to say from Steinberg’s riposte.
Steinberg’s zeal for twentieth century music is a consistent feature of this volume. In March 1965 Boston heard the Violin Concerto of Schoenberg for the first time. Steinberg felt that this was an event of such importance that not only did he review the concert – of course – but also, he wrote an introductory piece about the work which the Globe published a few days in advance of the concert in question. In the following year he gave similar exposure to another rarity when the BSO programmed Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s ‘Faust’. A month after the Schoenberg performance he was in New York to produce a very balanced assessment of the first performance of Charles Ives’ Fourth Symphony (by Leopold Stokowski and the America Symphony Orchestra), forty-nine years after Ives completed the score.
Though there are many reviews of performances within these pages, the editors offer us much more that “just” reviews of live performances. Steinberg’s writing for the Globe included interview/feature pieces about individual musicians; reviews of recordings; and essays in which he reflected on organisations such as the BSO. One example which caught my eye was the occasion when a review of a Rudolf Serkin performance of Beethoven’s Op 111 Piano Sonata in December 1965 prompted further reflection on Steinberg’s part. As a result, his very first piece of 1966 for the Globe, in January, was a thoughtful and most interesting discussion of the sonata itself
Steinberg’s range was wide; in 1965 he even reviewed The Beatles’ film Help! Not long after, he went to New York to review performances by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic of three Mahler symphonies: numbers 9, 7 and 8, given in that order. Steinberg’s thoughts on the works themselves and the performances they received are very interesting – Bernstein and the orchestra made a celebrated recording of the Seventh at around this time and he set down the Eighth in London some months later (review). However, what caught my eye in particular was the critic’s very frank assessment of the playing standards of the NYPO at that time and his judgement that whatever else Bernstein might have achieved since becoming Music Director, he had not improved the orchestra’s quality.
Steinberg frequently reviewed Mahler performances – and recordings – and did so from the standpoint of evident admiration for and deep knowledge of the music. I enjoyed his warm praise for a January 1967 BSO performance of the Ninth symphony led by Rafael Kubelik; he described the performance as “intimate and vocal rather than dramatic” and praised the conductor’s “deep, empathetic identification with the music”. Those who are familiar with Kubelik’s DG cycle of the Mahler symphonies will, I suspect, second that assessment. He struck a rather different note in December 1970, when William Steinberg conducted the orchestra in what was only the BSO’s second encounter with the Seventh symphony; the first was in 1948. Michael Steinberg detected flaws in the work itself and also identified shortcomings in the performance and interpretation. However, two things really struck me forcibly when I read this review. The first was that, if I read the review right, there was an interval in the concert which, unbelievably, came after the first movement of the symphony! (The Seventh had been preceded by Mozart’s ‘Linz’ Symphony.) Secondly, I can’t resist quoting what he said about the symphony’s finale: to him it “seems like a picture of Mahler stuck on a desert island without a score of Meistersinger, trying to remember how the overture goes and becoming enraged because he can’t”. Whether or not you agree with that view (I don’t), I think you have to admit that’s a fantastically imaginative snippet of writing.
So far, the examples I’ve cited have almost exclusively concerned professional musicians. However, as part of his mission to cover the full spectrum of the Boston musical scene, Steinberg by no means disdained to appraise performances involving amateur organisations. As an amateur choral singer myself, I was especially drawn to a piece he wrote in June 1970 in which he commented on performances by two large amateur choirs, the Framingham Choral Society and the Masterworks Chorale of Lexington; his principal theme was the performance problems that could be caused by choruses that are too large. I think he makes some very fair points. That said, I think it’s generally accepted that standards of choral singing, both amateur and professional, have risen significantly over the last five decades; I wonder if Steinberg might have a different view were he to hear either choir today; they are both still in existence, though the Framingham choir is now known as The Heritage Chorale.
I must mention one work which crops up in two very different contexts in this book: Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. In July 1966, he attended an NYPO performance, given in New York in the composer’s presence. He notes that even the composer’s wife booed the performance and production and, in a no-holds-barred review, he explains why. In December 1972, Leonard Bernstein came to Boston and conducted the BSO in a most odd programme which paired Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony with Oedipus Rex. Steinberg reviewed the Friday afternoon performance and expressed some significant reservations, not least regarding the performance of René Kollo in the title role. The concert was repeated the following evening and, as he sometimes did, Steinberg attended, intending simply to listen for pleasure. However, the Stravinsky performance, and Kollo’s contribution in particular, was so much better that he felt he should write a second review. Hats off to him for the fairness – and, dare I say, humility – that he showed in expressing second thoughts publicly.
I could cite umpteen more individual essays and reviews that vie for the reader’s attention but I’ll leave you to discover those for yourself. It’s worth considering, for a moment, Steinberg’s writings about the BSO itself. It’s very clear that he had great respect for the institution and for the players and that he placed enormous value on the BSO’s position in the city’s cultural life. When he was critical – and quite often he was – it seems to me that he always did so because he wanted the orchestra to do even better. Erich Leinsdorf was Music Director between 1962 and 1969. Steinberg was ready to praise the conductor’s work – for example, his aforementioned performance of Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s ‘Faust’. He was also supportive of some aspects of Leinsdorf’s programme planning – but frustrated by other programming decisions. Overall, though, it’s clear that he regarded the Leinsdorf tenure as disappointing. In late 1967, Leinsdorf announced his resignation effective at the end of the 1968/69 season and Steinberg covered this episode in some depth. It’s evident that there were tensions between the conductor and the BSO trustees. As I read Steinberg’s reportage I couldn’t help but be reminded of the defenestration of the latest MD of the BSO, Andris Nelsons, though the circumstances were significantly different, not least because Leinsdorf wanted out and Nelsons did not. William Steinberg was eventually engaged to replace Leinsdorf and when the programme for his first season was announced, Michael Steinberg’s thoughts on the music that had been included – and, more importantly, his regret at the predominantly conservative tone of the season’s offering and what he perceived as missed opportunities – strike me as a prime example of his consistent desire for the BSO to do better.
Michael Steinberg wrote his last contribution to the Boston Globe on 19 September 1976; he had resigned in order to become the editor of the BSO’s programme books. In his last commentary he reflected on the changes that he had witnessed in the preceding period of nearly 13 years. Those changes included the deaths or retirements of many great artists and the emergence onto the scene of some exciting new talents. He tells his readers that “Boston, these twelve-and-a-half-years, has been exciting”. That excitement comes across vividly in these pages. I referred at the start of this review to the three volumes of Steinberg’s writings about music which OUP has previously published. I’ve found all three of them to be invaluable sources of highly informed, perceptive and insightful commentary about many pieces from the mainstream concert repertoire. This book is different – though no less valuable. In the previous books, we could read Steinberg’s thoughts on a host of individual pieces, most of them major works. In this collection of his contributions to the Boston Globe we have something different and, in a way, even more valuable. In these pages we can marvel at the sheer range of Michael Steinberg’s musical journalism. The views he expresses are informed by a great depth of knowledge and understanding. It’s important to remember, too, that whereas the other books contained essays which could be written and refined over time the items in this book were written to tight deadlines; yet never are the results inelegant in any way. Steinberg was a marvellous writer about music.
In his September 1976 envoi, Steinberg, surveying his time at the Boston Globe, wrote that “[m]usic itself is unquenchably alive”. In these pages, he chronicles the vibrant musical scene in Boston – and beyond – during these years and, through his writing, gives us a sweeping panorama of that “unquenchable” musical vitality.
This is an absorbing book which will entertain and enlighten you on page after page.
John Quinn
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