First-Hand:Classical Music Critic

Submitted by A. Michael Noll, October 23, 2025

I was attending a classical music concert around the summer of 2002 at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. There was an outstanding conductor (Richard Aulden Clark), and an orchestra consisting of students and faculty. During the intermission, a person in the lobby was handing out materials about the Classical New Jersey Society – Paul Somers -- who used to be the music critic for the Newark Star Ledger. I chatted with him, and he asked me to be one of the Society’s critics. I was amazed, since I knew nothing a being a critic or of classical music theory – but I decided to give it a try.

From then to 2007, I wrote about three-dozen reviews for the Society’s Journal. Paul was an excellent editor and helped me along. Most of my reviews were of concerts in New Jersey, but I sprinkled some from Los Angeles too. It was great fun to do a rave review – such as my reviews of the Felix Hell organ recital on the magnificent organ at the Sacred Heart Basilica in Newark, or the premier of the Viola Concerto by Peter Schickele with the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra.

My review of the new Disney Hall in Los Angeles was very negative. I felt that the acoustics were bad, with no low frequencies and a mumbled sound on the stage. My negative review was unique – I was told that local critics could not be negative or they would not be invited to concerts. Concert hall acoustics are a mystical art, requiring perhaps more luck than acoustical science, other than some simple basic principles.

I always had a love of classical orchestra music, and collected thousands of LPs and then CDs. I can still recall my first LP of Stravinsky’s Le Sacré du Printemps. But as a critic, I did not know one note from another, or the meaning of keys, and other music theory. I just listened, and knew what I liked. I could compare one recording of a performance with another – and the quality of the recording. I guess I was opinionated – and perhaps that is most important in a critic.