TV REVIEW : ‘Carnegie Hall at 100’: Dream Time

If you have ever been to one of those anniversary parties for a rich and popular old relative, where everybody chips in glowing reminiscences and nostalgic photos for a scrapbook, you know what to expect from “Carnegie Hall at 100: A Place of Dreams.” The show is a 60-minute stream of celebrity testimonials. (It airs tonight on KPBS Channel 15 at 9 p.m. and KVCR Channel 24 and KOCE Channel 50 at 10 p.m., and Sunday on KCET Channel 28 at 6:30 p.m.)

“Carnegie Hall at 100,” produced and directed by Peter Rosen, is not a history, though we do hear brief mention of celebrated concerts. Even the proposal to raze the building in the 1960s is treated as a personality story, void of detail.

Conspicuous through inconsistency, much is made of Carnegie’s openness to all musical genres. Frank Sinatra suggests that the breakthrough for popular music was made by George Gershwin, while Pete Seeger nominates a Benny Goodman concert and Liza Minnelli proposes an advent as late as the Beatles.

Nor is the program a concert, though short clips abound. Dance and drama get talked about--by Agnes de Mille and Jason Robards, among others--but the performance snippets are all music, with a few comedy bits.

What we do get is star power. If Van Cliburn and Yo-Yo Ma don’t do it for you, perhaps Julie Andrews and Garrison Keillor, or Wynton Marsalis and Ray Charles will, all witnessing to the Carnegie mystique. No analysis, just the tautology that Carnegie Hall is important because famous people perform there and performers become important by playing Carnegie Hall.

The warmth of the sentiment is undeniable, but the effect is rather like being in a receiving line for an hour, hearing the same general compliments.