Ask the Critic: Mark Swed

Question: In assessing the quality of a live orchestral performance, how do you differentiate the contributions of the composer, the conductor and the musicians? In other words, how do you decide who deserves the credit, or the blame?

Swed: Making music is a matter of society. For me the greatest performance is one in which conductor, composer and musicians fuse into an inspired whole greater than the sum of its individual parts. When this happens, the listener -- and, yes, critic -- can become too carried away to care about analysis.

Now for the real world.

In most cases, a regular concertgoer will have had previous contact with most, if not all, the components of a performance -- be it the piece, composer, style of music, orchestra, conductor. If one knows the vivid attention to detail that Esa-Pekka Salonen can bring to, say, a Los Angeles Philharmonic performance of Berlioz’s psychedelic “Symphonie Fantastique,” then if a new conductor shows up to conduct Berlioz, you’ve already got a pretty good idea of who does what. If Berlioz suddenly sounds bland, that is not Berlioz’s or the Philharmonic’s fault.

With both the orchestra and the conductor new to a listener, the evaluation gets more problematic. For instance, the orchestra may not be in tune because the conductor didn’t rehearse it well. Then again, the players may not be all that great, no matter who conducts them. But there are usually clues, such as how well a conductor seems in command.

The most uncertain situation involves new music. When Yo-Yo Ma gave the premiere of Elliott Carter’s Cello Concerto with the Chicago Symphony in 2001, he played with his usual fervor but he hadn’t really mastered the score, which sounded vague and overly complex. But Ma was playing, so everyone assumed it must have been a great performance. It wasn’t until a London performance a year later that Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen made the concerto come alive.

Got a question? Go to calendarlive.com/askthecritic to send an e-mail, or to browse an archive of responses.