The editor of Commentary, John Podhoretz, on last night’s concert:
This interweaving of music and poetry was emotionally overwhelming, because what they share was an astonishing lack of sentimentality—and a startling modernity.
There was no yeidel-deedle-deidel charm here, limited sweetness, little light. These were anxious musical pieces and anxious poems, startlingly self-aware and sophisticated. Through both melody and verse, there ran that indelible Jewish blend of skeptical irony and pained humor. But what proved so devastating was how they (and the music especially) seemed to herald in their frightening dissonances and determined lack of satisfying resolution the destruction soon to come.