Of concerts, orchestras and conductors

Mario Calafato's letter A Night To Forget At The Manoel Theatre (October 1) made me wonder if we both attended the same concert on September 27.

Yes, we can criticise anyone and anything; that appears to be the norm for some people. However, one must take other points into account before extremely criticising an orchestra whom I rate highly, based on the fact that Malta is a small country and hosts great talent among its population.

One does not attend a concert, be it in Malta, London, Vienna, Germany or anywhere else in the world, to criticise the event but leave it up to the "expert reviewers" and which I contend that Mr Calafato is not.

Yes, the Beethoven piano concerto No. 5 could have been better but, putting the mistakes aside, my wife and I enjoyed it as we did the Schubert Great C major.

The string section was good, the brass on occasion made mistakes but we must not compare The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra with other world-class orchestras.

How Mr Calafato could have seen the display of baton techniques by Brian Schembri I cannot understand because throughout the whole concert the conductor had his back to the audience, unless, of course, Mr Calafato had a different seat to mine, which I doubt.

Yes, conductors do conduct their orchestras in different ways. Would you not consider that the late Sir Georg Solti, Otto Klemperer, Carlo Maria Guilini and Herbert von Karajan all have their idiosyncrasies?

Come on Mr Calafato, let us face it, you love to criticise, don't you?