Donal Henahan

Donal Henahan (February 28, 1921 – August 19, 2012) was an American music critic and journalist who had lengthy associations with the Chicago Daily News and The New York Times. With the Times he won the annual Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1986; he had been a finalist in 1982.

Quotes

1970s

• We all invent ourselves as we go along, and a great man's myths about himself merely tend to stick better than most.
  • "Joys and Sorrows", in The New York Times (April 12, 1970), sec. br, p. 4
  • Misattributed to Denis Brogan in Alec Lewis (ed.) The Quotable Quotations Book (1980), p. 243

• On the subject of wild mushrooms it is easy to tell who is an expert and who is not: The expert is the one who is still alive.
  • "John Cage, Elfin Enigma, at 64", The New York Times (October 22, 1976), p. 49

• Next to the writer of real estate advertisements, the autobiographer is the most suspect of prose artists.
  • "The Unsinkable Beverly Sills", in The New York Times (February 11, 1977), sec. c, p. 25

• Bartók's vision of a modern music "rejuvenated under the influence of a kind of peasant music that has remained untouched by the musical creations of the last centuries" appears now as an idea whose time came and went while the recording machines were running. ... In this country, at any rate, real folk music long ago went to Nashville to die and left no known survivors.
  • "The Sound of Folk Music", in The New York Times (May 8, 1977), p. 219

• Christina Petrowska ... has fingers that work like chrome‐plated pistons, and her highseated position, with elbows well above the keyboard level, let her bring pulverizing power to bear.
  • "Dazzling, No More", in The New York Times (May 18, 1977), p. 66

1980s

• It might be argued that genuine spontaneity is not really possible or desirable so long as printed scores of great works exist. True. All modern musicians are, for better or worse, prisoners of Gutenberg.
  • "Music View; Whatever Happened to Spontaneity in Performance?", in The New York Times (May 13, 1984), sec. 2, p. 19

• The sad truth is that the human brain can soften as a result of incessant listening to music with an intent to commit prose.
• In the final stages of ennui, we may not even be disappointed to hear jarringly wrong notes or wayward interpretations at recitals, because the more disastrous the mishaps the simpler the reviewing task.
  • "Music View; When Inspired Awfulness Becomes Interesting", in The New York Times (August 31, 1986), sec. 2, p. 13