What happens when you get a bad review? Do you grin and bear it? Buy all the copies and shred ’em? Better yet, perhaps you don’t read it in the first place. But it might be a really great review, full of astonishing insights into your stellar artistry, and you might be able to use it in your new publicity material. And reading nice stuff about yourself is good for the ego. Oh, well, you can’t believe what people say anyway, and if you believe the good stuff, then you’ll have to start believing the other stuff too. I suppose one could write to the critics and objectively beg to differ every time you feel they have been “misinformed,” or maybe tell them your dad buys all the papers for the eastern seaboard and will close them down for good if they don’t print a retraction immediately.

What do I do? Well, mostly I don’t pay much attention. But after reading a review in the October issue of The Strad, I just had to speak up. Following is a letter I wrote to that publication, dated October 26.

Dear Sirs:

I recently ran into a colleague by the fifth-floor elevators at The Juilliard School in New York City, where we are both on the faculty. He said, “I saw a review of you in The Strad today.” I said, “Good or bad?” “Bad,” he said. Well, this sent me off to the library to find out which of my transgressions had disturbed your critic. I had no trouble finding the review, which is in the October 2001 edition, pages 1150-51. There it was in plain English. Toby Appel, along with violinist Mark Peskanov and cellist Nathaniel Rosen, performing in New York at a repeat pair of concerts which included the opus 9 string trios of Beethoven. The reviewed concert took place on July 26 on the Barge [Bargemusic], and it was suggested by your critic that “given the individual excellence of each of these players, it was disappointing to hear so many details imperfectly executed when one was certain that more rehearsal would have improved the level of performance exponentially.” It goes on, and I suppose I should be grateful for these kind words: “Appel was the steadiest of the three and had the fewest intonation problems.” Well, that’s nice to know. Your critic finishes by saying “…the paying audience for the first time deserved better.”

As I mentioned before, it pleases me to think that my intonation, while weak, was the best of the three, but am certainly disappointed that your readers now know that I have such little regard for my audience that I chose not to rehearse properly with my weaker colleagues.

My weak intonation not withstanding, I have a neat bit of news for you and your most eloquent critic. On July 26 I was not playing a concert in New York with Mark and Nick, but was in Leipzig, Germany, fast asleep after a full day of master classes and a final dinner with my pupils at the Hochshule für Musik at the conclusion of a wonderful three-week course there. I suppose it is not such a small consolation for me to know that my reputation is so widespread that when my name is listed on a concert program, one should expect, at best, some weak intonation, even if I’m not going to be there in person.

Of course I know of your critic, Dennis Rooney, as I have always enjoyed him in his many wonderful films with Judy Garland. I suggest Mr. Rooney check out his concert program more carefully and that in the future, when he wants to confuse me with another performer, he choose someone who plays better.