The Flawed Artistry of TÁR

The Flawed Artistry of TÁR

Good—actually good—films about classical musicians tend to be elusive. On one hand, movies like Amadeus and Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould present compelling depictions of real-life artists, even if they stretch the truth a bit along the way. Others take a purely fictional approach but are nonetheless successful. (The Red Violin comes to mind here.) Then you have films whose intentions may be good, but the results are anything but. (Apparently, someone thought it would be a great idea to make a musical about Edvard Grieg starring Florence Henderson of The Brady Bunch.) Of course, there are also some movies that fit into the prestigious “so bad, they’re good” category. This honor is lovingly bestowed upon the fever dream that is Ken Russell’s Lisztomania as well as the amazingly ridiculous Grand Piano, which features Elijah Wood as a concert pianist who will be shot by a sniper if he plays one wrong note. (Seriously, I’m not making this up.)

Enter Tár.

Directed by Todd Field, Tár has received almost universal acclaim since its release in October 2022. Critics praised the film for its complex and nuanced exploration of power, toxicity, and abuse, with nearly everyone agreeing that Cate Blanchett’s role as the fictional conductor Lydia Tár is one of her best performances. Additionally, Tár has already won several major awards, with more pending—including six Oscar nominations—and was even singled out by former President Barack Obama as one of his favorite films of the year.

With such high praise, this begged the question: would this finally be the classical music film that paints an accurate portrait of the industry, uniting critics, classical musicians, and music lovers in the process?

Unfortunately, no.

Tár has polarized, shocked, and even offended the classical music community. Some loved it. Gustavo Dudamel called the film “wonderful” and “very credible,” and praised Blanchett’s conducting. British conductor Alice Farnham applauded Tár for normalizing the image of female conductors. Others weren’t so generous. Mark Swed of the LA Times likened it to “a mean-spirited horror film with a… chip on its shoulder the size of the Hollywood Bowl.” JoAnn Falletta appreciated the craft but had issues with some of the film’s finer details. Leonard Slatkin was also not much of a fan. Most notable and damning of all was the reaction of Marin Alsop, former music director of the Baltimore Symphony and, arguably, the real-life inspiration for some of Lydia Tár’s character details. Alsop derided the film, stating, “I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a conductor, I was offended as a lesbian.” She continues: “To have an opportunity to portray a woman in that role and to make her an abuser—for me that was heartbreaking…. To assume that women will either behave identically to men or become hysterical, crazy, insane is to perpetuate something we’ve already seen on film so many times before.” Yikes. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Regardless, the buzz piqued my interest. Was Tár really that polarizing? I had to investigate.

Several weeks ago, I sat down over Zoom with my good friend Tanner Cassidy—PhD candidate in music theory at UC Santa Barbara—to watch the film and discuss our thoughts afterward (similar to what we did in 2021 with the AI-completed Beethoven 10).

So, what did we think? It’s complicated. The film definitely isn’t terrible, as some of the reactions would have one believe; it’s beautifully shot and marvelously acted and offers some interesting moments and thought-provoking ideas. But, our final assessment was not positive. The film contains numerous flaws—from irritating factual errors to broad, uncomfortable misconceptions—that end up doing a significant disservice to the drama, to the art of conducting, and to the music itself. It was, in a word: disappointing.

Below are some curated excerpts from our almost two-hour Zoom discussion, in which we lament the film’s dismal ending, puzzle over the use of Mahler 5, and reassert our love for Amadeus.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

[Before starting, we chat about our initial impressions of the film.]

Kevin McBrien (KM): So, this movie is getting a lot of buzz right now with the Oscars coming up. Other than Cate Blanchett’s role as this revered but toxic conductor, I don’t know a ton about it.

Tanner Cassidy (TC): I know more about the reaction than about the movie itself. Critics love this movie, from what I can tell. But it seems a bit like a Whiplash or La La Land situation because nobody I’ve talked to who’s in classical music has liked it. I’ve heard reactions from “It was interesting” to “I turned it off after twenty minutes.” I know that people like La La Land because there’s good craft and good drama, even though it gets so many details wrong. I wonder if that’s what’s going to happen here.

KM: And it’s interesting because a lot of these reactions are coming out now, more so than when the movie was in theaters.

TC: The movie bombed in theaters, from what I can tell. It was not marketed or released super well back in October. It’s also factored into a bigger discussion about “the death of cinema,” which is ridiculous. A movie doing poorly is fine; it happens. Again, I know so much about how this movie is functioning in a conversation more than I actually know anything about it.

KM: Right. Well, let’s check it out…

[We watch Tár, and pick up our discussion afterward. Spoilers ahead!]

TC: Man, that ending… It’s like the filmmakers said, “What’s the craziest punishment we can give this person? Oh, conducting Monster Hunter concerts for a bunch of cosplayers in Asia!” That’s ridiculous. And the idea of Tár talking about the “composer’s intent” is a silly question for that kind of music. I mean, come on… So many symphony orchestras do video game scores!

KM: Yeah, the “high art” versus “low art” conversation is just tired at this point. If this movie came out 25 or 30 years ago, we might look at that ending and say, “Bummer, that sucks for her.” But it’s so prominent now. Of course, there are still people who roll their eyes whenever an orchestra programs John Williams, but that seems so much less of an issue now.

Our faces for most of the film.

TC: Right! Film and video game music are certainly not as prestigious as classical music, but they’re more culturally relevant these days. The ending could have been triumphant in that Tár is punished by losing her titles and her lifestyle. I could see a version where she “has her cake and eats it too” in a way that doesn’t feel like you’re letting the character off for being abusive. That’s something I did like; the movie shows that anybody can be an a**hole and, for much of it, you vacillate between being on her side and being horrified by her. That’s good drama, that’s good characterization. But at the same time, her punishment at the end is… a fulfilling career, and the movie doesn’t seem to think of it like that. The ending is just so disheartening to me.

KM: And in a way, it’s reminiscent of some real-life figures who have been “Me-Tooed” in the US. I think of someone like [Plácido] Domingo, how he is basically done here but is still performing in Europe and South America.

TC: Or like Roman Polanski. The thing the movie doesn’t do—which I’m mixed on—is that it doesn’t clearly confirm or deny that Tár actually did what she’s accused of. We see and hear bits of evidence, of course, but it’s unclear if she’s always acted in a way that’s professionally and ethically irresponsible, or if it’s something else entirely.

KM: Especially with how fragmented the film becomes in the last 45 minutes. I think it’s implied that Tár might be dealing with schizophrenia or OCD, but I don’t know…

TC: Right, with the ringing sounds throughout [implied to be misophonia] and the medications she needs. I wonder if that’s what they were going for. There are cuts where the passage of time erodes, and you could argue that the editing gets more concise to show the fragmentation of her mind and the unraveling of her life. Those are things I usually love to think about—how the editing or the structure of a film marries its content—but I was just annoyed by it this time. [Laughs.] And her fall from grace seemed too quick as well.

KM: Yes! I thought the film was going to focus more on that. I had Whiplash in mind—just the idea of a straight-up abusive authority figure. On one hand, I’m glad this film didn’t do that because that’s uncomfortable in a completely different direction. I liked how it shows that toxicity isn’t always just “violent rage.” It can be small, behind-the-scenes things like microaggressions and slights and biases. But it didn’t end up exploring that in a satisfying way.

TC: And she didn’t need to be a conductor either; she could have been anything. But conductors are just such a great shorthand for totalitarianism—one person with a stick. A stage director has the same dynamics, but I guess it’s not as visually significant. The film also espouses a surprisingly neutral view on cancel culture. It’s like, “This is what it is and this is how it’s bad, but also here are five people who did things and got caught, like James Levine.” It’s trying to go for nuance in a way that I do appreciate, but it doesn’t really end up working. It tries to do too much.

Continue reading “The Flawed Artistry of TÁR”

Beethoven or Bot? – Evaluating an AI’s Completion of Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony

Beethoven or Bot? – Evaluating an AI’s Completion of Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony

Although most of the hubbub surrounding Beethoven’s 250th birthday has subsided, a few bits of the celebration have lingered into 2021 as concert halls worldwide open up once again. However, one recent Beethoven item has raised many eyebrows in the music world. Back in September, the news broke that a team of computer specialists and music scholars had “completed” Beethoven’s unfinished Tenth Symphony using AI technology and scant scraps that Beethoven left behind upon his death in 1827. Dubbed “Beethoven X: The AI Project,” it was also announced that a recording of the results—played by a live orchestra—would be released the following month. Like many, I was skeptical. This just seemed like another lame excuse for more Beethoven deification, one that would take the focus away from issues that are currently more pressing, like promoting diversity and equity in classical music.

Still, I was curious what the results would sound like. So, I recently met over Zoom with my friend Tanner Cassidy—a PhD candidate in music theory at UC Santa Barbara—to listen to it and share our impressions. (There may have been a smidge of alcohol involved as well… *wink*) Below are excerpts from our discussion, which have been edited for length and clarity. What did we think? Does a computer have the potential to live up to Beethoven or is this something best left in the trash bin? Let’s find out…


Kevin McBrien (KM): So about a year or two ago, this German telecommunications company [Telekom]—with AI specialists and music scholars—was like, “Hey, let’s take these incomplete sketches of Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony and feed it into an AI program and see what happens.” And this is the resulting piece that came out of it. There was this musicologist—Barry Cooper—who reconstructed the first movement in the 80s and that’s been recorded and released as kind of a hypothetical Beethoven 10. And this one, apparently, is just the third and fourth movements.

The musicologist Barry Cooper realized the first movement of Beethoven’s Tenth in the 80s, which was subsequently recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra.

Tanner Cassidy (TC): So there’s no second movement that exists?

KM: I guess not, or there’s not enough to go off of.

TC: I actually have some experience with AI-generated music. An undergrad friend of mine was writing bebop-based algorithmic composition, where he fed it Charlie Parker licks, and then he had me play what the computer spit out, which was just nonsense. AI has really struggled with rhythm, so I’m really curious to see what rhythm sounds like. [KM edit: Similarly, Google acknowledged J.S. Bach’s birthday in 2019 with a Doodle that, with the help of AI, generated a Bach-style harmonization around a two-bar melody you fed it.]

KM: Yeah, I heard a snippet of it on an NPR story, and it’s weird. So, I’m also curious to listen to the whole thing.

TC: Well, I’ll mute my audio, and then we can listen to this.


[We listen to the third movement.]

Continue reading “Beethoven or Bot? – Evaluating an AI’s Completion of Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony”

Favorite Albums (and Streams) of 2020

Favorite Albums (and Streams) of 2020

Can I be perfectly honest for a second? I almost didn’t write this blog post. This year has been unbelievably challenging and draining on so many levels—COVID, protests, wildfires, murder hornets… need I continue? For a good while, a year-end wrap-up of my favorite albums from 2020 seemed like an almost pointless, even naive, undertaking.

Reaching the end of 2020 like…

Truth be told, though, music was one of the main things that helped me get through this “dumpster fire” of a year, and there was so much great stuff released despite (or in spite of) the state of the world. I truly believe that it deserves proper recognition. In fact, it quickly became a challenge to narrow down my initial list. Once I began thinking about my favorite releases from this year, the list grew to almost 40 candidates. Not bad for a year such as this!

Since this was such a “wonky” year (boy, is that an understatement!), this list is also a little wonky. Due to the presence of so many streamed music events, both live and pre-recorded, I decided to include some of those as well. As a result, this year’s list showcases 10 of my musical favorites from 2020—6 albums and 4 music streams. Once again, though, there were a ton more things that I could have selected. A handful of other favorites appear at the bottom of this post as “honorable mentions.”

Same as years past, each listing is accompanied by a short blurb and an audio or video clip. (In a few cases, there’s even a full recording.) If you like what you hear or see, I highly encourage you to support the artists by purchasing the album or donating directly to them and/or the performing organization. Artists need our support now more than ever, and financial contributions are one way to show our gratitude and help guarantee a return to concert venues once it’s safe.

Before launching into the list, an amusing anecdote: I was recently perusing through some old blog posts and noticed that in December 2017 (the year I started this blog), my first end-of-year album wrap-up began as follows: “It’s absolutely no question that 2017 was a heck of a year. Political tensions, violence, scandals – no year in recent memory has seemed as fraught with discord and turmoil as this one.” Oh to be a time traveler and inform my 2017 self what a “heck of a year” really looks like.

Anyway, here are my favorite albums and streams from 2020. In no particular order…

String Orchestra of Brooklyn & Eli Spindel – afterimage (Furious Artisans)

I am a sucker for concert programs that juxtapose old and new music, and this album scratches that itch perfectly. Released in January (pre-pandemic), afterimage perfectly pairs two recent works by Christopher Cerrone and Jacob Cooper with older pieces by Paganini and Pergolesi. The newer works are a particular highlight. Cooper’s expansive, time-suspending reimagining of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater emerges seamlessly from Cerrone’s luminous High Windows, a concerto grosso-like showcase for string quintet and orchestra. Add in phenomenal performances by the Argus Quartet, singers Mellissa Hughes and Kate Maroney, and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and you’ve got an album that I had on repeat many times throughout the year.

Continue reading “Favorite Albums (and Streams) of 2020”