What Are Critics Up in Arms About?

At last, the musicians enter and a civil word can be heard regarding David Helfgott and his “Shine” tour. Both Lawrence Teeter and David Sadowitz make important points about the business of music and especially the attitude of the critics.

What is all the fuss about? In a society that not only tolerates, but congratulates, the likes of Howard Stern, must we fall all over ourselves censoring Helfgott and his right to perform, and to perhaps quiet his own demons, and some of our own as well. Do the critics really believe the audience is so ignorant that it does not understand this is music filtered through Helfgott’s life experience? What is it exactly they object to? His recovery? His tenacity? His shining face of victory over madness? His audacity? Or perhaps all of these plus the powerful presence of his strong and loving (and yes, older) wife, all ready-made to annoy the critics and the musical establishment. Their criticism and sense of high moral outrage is a kind of pompous elitism that is at once both amusing and infuriating.

If only Helfgott had known his recovery and marriage had the power to drive so many critics to such distraction and anger, he might have been able to pull his wits together long ago. I can only hope that he will continue to play against the “dying of the light.”

ALIDA BRILL

La Jolla