A recent update on the Rosenberg/Cleveland Orchestra matter

The web site of the Cleveland Jewish News has a recent update about the goings on of music critic Donald Rosenberg’s lawsuit against the Cleveland Orchestra.  He has recently changed some of the details of his suit:  when the defendents tried to move the suit to federal court, Rosenberg dropped some of the charges against the Plain Dealer and its editor Susan Goldberg.  The charges of defamation against the orchestra remain unchanged.

There are some interesting comments from Sharona Hoffman, associate dean and law professor at Case Western Reserve University. (Full disclosure: I work for CWRU, and I have met Prof. Hoffman; however, I do not know her well.)  She points out how difficult it will be for Rosenberg to prove age discrimination, and defamation could be proven if someone publicizes lies about him.   “But he’s a public figure who puts himself out there as a critic. It’s much harder to prove that sort of thing if he’s in the public eye.”

Get the Rosenberg lawsuit text

Thanks to The New Yorker, you can download the complete text (PDF) of Don Rosenberg’s lawsuit against the Plain Dealer, the Musical Arts Association and various and sundry individuals.  I’ve not made my way through it yet, but his alleged hurts are grievous.

The Rosenberg saga continues: lawsuit

I’ve been away on business for most of the last week, so haven’t been posting, or even keeping up much with the news, so I’m late to the game with the latest of the Donald Rosenberg/Cleveland Orchestra saga.  You will remember that Rosenberg was the Cleveland Plain Dealer music critic who covered the Cleveland Orchestra for years.  This Fall he was  reassigned by the PD editor Susan Goldberg to general arts reporting, and the plum orchestra assignment was awarded to Zachary Lewis, a former intern.  There has been general speculation that Rosenberg was reassigned because of his relentlessly negative writing about the performances of the orchestra’s music director, Franz Welser-Möst.

On December 11, both the Plain Dealer and Daniel Wakin in the  New York Times reported that Rosenberg has now filed a lawsuit against the management of the Cleveland Orchestra, the Musical Arts Association (the orchestra’s parent organization), and the Plain Dealer for defamation, as well as age discrimination.  He is asking at least $50,000 in punitive damages.  He claims that the orchestra has a vendetta against him because of his reviews.  It should be noted that Rosenberg is the author of the definitive history of the Cleveland Orchestra.

As one might expect, a lawyer for the orchestra made some comments in defense:

“It’s a funny grievance coming from a lifetime reporter, that the people that he writes about have an obligation to stay silent,” said Robert Duvin, a lawyer for the orchestra. “We don’t have the same platform, so what we have to do is write letters or have meetings. You guys get to publish every day, and bring the hammer down as often as you want to on anybody you want to.”

Mr. Duvin said he could not address the specifics of Mr. Rosenberg’s lawsuit. But assuming it were true that orchestra officials had urged his dismissal, he said, “So what?”

“I consider what he wrote to be the equivalent of urging the removal of the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra,” Mr. Duvin said. “There are many people who considered his relentless negative assessment, when contrasted with worldwide praise, to be personal, petty and vindictive.”

This seems, frankly, like quite a clever money grab on Rosenberg’s part: the $50K damages sought is a small enough amount that it will be cheaper for the PD and Orchestra to settle and shut him up, no matter how trivial the complaint, despite the fact that he would be unlikely to prevail in court.  It is an employer’s prerogative to reassign an employee to new tasks for any reason, or no reason at all.  In fact, in the current economic climate, one might speculate that a second music and arts critic at the Plain Dealer is lucky to still have any job.  Rosenberg claims that his right of free speech has been curtailed.  Not really–again, as an employee–especially as a critic–for the Plain Dealer, he is subject to whatever the editorial policies that the newspaper deems appropriate.   He may think that he will embarrass the Orchestra, but, in fact, he only diminishes his own stature by this trivial and petty action.

There is also a feature story in the December 2008  Gramophone magazine, the U.K. music journal about the Rosernberg matter.  (Sorry, it doesn’t seem to be available online.) The article has quite a balanced review of the events to date, and notes that the fact that the reviews by Zachary Lewis this season have also contained negative remarks, which leads one to believe that the PD editor did have other reasons for reassigning Rosenberg.  It is ironic that it is the same issue that includes an article listing the Cleveland Orchestra among the top 20 orchestras in the world.

Zachary Lewis makes his Cleveland Orchestra debut

After last week’s turmoil over Don Rosenberg’s dismissal by the Plain Dealer as the regular critic of Cleveland Orchestra concerts, it doesn’t take too much of a leap to imagine that one of the most uncomfortable seats in the house last Thursday was that occupied by Zachary Lewis, newly-minted successor to Rosenberg.  His inaugural review is here.  In some ways he was in a no-win situation: if he gave the performance a glowing review, Rosenberg’s supporters would say he was just a pawn of the supposed Orchestra/Plain Dealer coven; if he gave a negative review, there would be those who would say that he had to do so, so as to show he wasn’t part of the alleged conspiracy.  In fact, although the overall tone of the review is positive, there were enough zingers to catch one’s attention.  (“Two prominent gaffes by different instruments may keep Thursday’s Bruckner from making the final DVD. But even without those, it was not always clear why this should be a performance to immortalize.”)  Exactly.

I attended the performance on Friday evening.  By far the more interesting performance was that of the new “Duet” by George Benjamin, with super-pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard as the soloist.  Friday was the U.S. deuxième (the premiere having been on Thursday).  The sounds and structures were enchanting, especially the hushed tango-like rhythms in the harp and low strings, and the single notes of the piano against the chamber orchestra texture.

The Bruckner 7th Symphony was deliberate to the max.  I detected several intonation problems during it’s hour-long course, in the collection of Wagner tubas, and later in the winds.  There are several magnificently thrilling climaxes, but I have come to the conclusion that Bruckner’s musical structures (and perhaps Franz Welser-Möst’s interpretation) are too vast for me to comprehend over such long time spans.  There was no subtlety.  Bruckner’s 8th Symphony comes up later in the season. Maybe next time I’ll get the point….

New York Times weighs in on the Rosenberg/Cleveland Orchestra fracas

The New York Times on Thursday, September 25th, published an article by Daniel J. Wakin on the front page of its arts section about the Plain Dealer’s dismissal of Donald Rosenberg as the critic of the Cleveland Orchestra performances. Not much new ground is covered; there are quotes from Rosenberg himself, from Plain Dealer editor Sarah Goldberg (who declines to comment on an “internal personnel matter”), from Franz Wesler-Möst (“If the same person writes after six years that the orchestra plays beautifully and what I do is bad, somehow it misses logic.”) and from Gary Hanson, who reiterates most of what he said in the comment he left on this blog.

The Orchestra’s first concert of the season was last night.  So far, no review on the PD web site.  I’m going tonight.

Feature article about Franz Welser-Möst

Zachary Lewis, successor to recently deposed Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rossenberg, has a feature article about Franz Welser-Möst in today’s paper.  You can see it here.  There is no hint of the recent controversy.  It is very even-handed, with quotes from present and former orchestra members, Cleveland Orchestra management (including Gary Hanson), as well as impresarios elsewhere, and discussions with Franz himself.  The article details some of the criticisms of Franz’s work (“blankness”, “lack of interpretation”) and some of the orchestra’s financial and artistic challenges (e.g. subscriptions and ticket sales are flat to declining in Cleveland; meanwhile revenues and demand from the orchestra’s tours are up.)  The piece seems to set a level and neutral playing field for what Lewis’s future critical working relationship to the orchestra will be.

The orchestra season begins tonight at Severance Hall, with the U.S. premiere of George Benjamin’s Duet for piano and orchestra (with Super-Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard as the soloist) and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, which is being filmed for release on DVD as the third in the orchestra’s series of DVDs of Bruckner symphonies.  Virtual Farm Boy is attending the Friday evening performance–under duress: I do not have the Bruckner gene, and I find his symphonies really tedious.  But I try to give things I don’t like multiple opportunites to win my favor  (It’s happened with Wagner.)  Maybe this will be the time for Bruckner.

More on Rosenberg: a reply from the Cleveland Orchestra

This afternoon I approved a comment submitted on my post from yesterday about Donald Rosenberg’s dismissal as the music critic of Cleveland Orchestra concerts.  The comment wasn’t just from any old reader; it was from Gary Hanson, the Executive Director of the Cleveland Orchestra.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I do know Gary Hanson, and have had some business dealings with him in my role as Deputy Director of the Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University.)  Gary’s full comment can be found here, but the gist of it is in his first couple of paragraphs:

In recent days, the music writers’ blogsphere has been rife with assumptions and even accusations that the management of The Cleveland Orchestra engineered personnel changes at Cleveland’s daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer. These accusations are false.

I want to set the record straight: I was completely surprised by the news last week that Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg has been re-assigned and will no longer cover The Cleveland Orchestra for the newspaper.

He goes on to state his admiration of Rosenberg’s history of the Cleveland Orchestra, and his respect for journalistic freedom without interference from the Orchestra.

I have no reason to disbelieve Gary Hanson (other than from a very cynical viewpoint that, as a former PR man himself, he would say anything necessary to put the Orchestra into the best possible light), and he undoubtedly does have a public relations problem (hence posting a comment on an pretty much unknown—albeit Cleveland local—blog such as Virtual Farm Boy).  Whether the Orchestra did or did not intervene directly in a personnel and editorial matter at the Plain Dealer is at this point somewhat irrelevant; the perception is out there that it happened, and it does not take a brilliant mind to leap to what may be an erroneous conclusion.  To my knowledge, the management of the Plain Dealer has so far been silent on the situation.  Another interpretation is that the Plain Dealer editorial staff just got tired of the complaints about Rosenberg’s consistently negative reviews about Franz Welser-Möst and decided themselves to reshuffle the music critic deck.  Unfortunately, if so, they didn’t do any favors for their friends at Severance Hall.

Don Rosenberg gets his

I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Opera Chic, the other night, when I came across this post quoting Tim Smith, the music critic of the Baltimore Sun, that Cleveland Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg has been removed from reviewing concerts by the Cleveland Orchestra. The first paragraph of Smith’s post sums it up:

Don Rosenberg, music critic at the Cleveland Plain Dealer for 16 years, was told yesterday by the paper’s editor that he will no longer be covering the famed Cleveland Orchestra. He has been given the option of reviewing other musical events in town, as well as dance. Another writer at the paper, Zack Lewis, was told he will now be orchestra’s reviewer. First, the full disclosure: I’ve known Don and Zach for years; both are members of the Music Critics Association of North America and its board of directors; Don is the immediate past president of that organization; I’m the current president. Now, the full, unbridled response to this news: It stinks.

(The whole post can be found here.)

I have long complained about Don Rosenberg’s seeming personal vendetta against Franz Welser-Möst; almost never has he had anything good to say about FWM’s performances, and when he does, it’s always couched in backhanded terms (“one of the best things he’s [FWM] done.”)  Far more common are the mean-spirited comments.  Rosenberg’s reviews have become a joke, especially when they are so out of sync with reviews that the orchestra receives when it performs elsewhere.  Are Rosenberg’s ears so finely tuned that he hears things others don’t?  (Sometimes I would read his review just to see how harsh it would be.)

I don’t happen to believe that Franz Welser-Möst is in the pantheon of great conductors.  (Mark the performance of the Berg “Chamber Concerto” a couple of seasons ago that totally broke down in performance.)  But when he’s “on”, the performances can be remarkable.  I do think that it is odd that the Plain Dealer has replaced Rosenberg, however, since it totally smacks of interference on the part of the orchestra in the newspaper’s journalistic integrity.  (There are close ties between the Orchestra’s board and the Plain Dealer management.)  There is precious little arts coverage in the PD anymore–I rarely read the paper in its printed form.  I’ll read some stories online, but mostly I ignore it altogether.  The paper’s website cleveland.com is a disorganized disaster as well.  (Why can’t newspapers have a look at some of their competitor’s sites to get a clue?)

One of operachic’s commentors (from Cleveland) got the salient bit:

Plenty of us in Cleveland have been tired of Rosenberg for a long time. His reviews are highly formulaic, and I’ve become increasingly convinced that he writes them at intermission.

I think nearly everyone would agree that FWM does not walk on water, but from what I hear the orchestra really is happy working with him. And personally I think he’s done some things really well. (He’s also conducted some of the most Wrong-headed Mahler I’ve ever heard, but that’s another story.)

Finally, I’d note that there’s a sad larger context around this. First, the Plain Dealer is not a venerable newspaper. It’s a thin, dying small-town rag that hasn’t done any significant journalism in decades. Its arts reporting exists only to build audiences for struggling institutions in a struggling town. The truth is that the Orchestra fills halls everywhere but on its home turf. They desperately need to build a new audience if they are to remain the “Cleveland” orchestra at all. The PD has simply knuckled under to that reality. (Of course, the orchestra could help by improving their marketing and diversifying their programming.) It’s not a pretty story, and it certainly doesn’t speak to journalistic integrity. On the other hand, Rosenberg’s “criticism” doesn’t either.