Critical Sinking

Andy Netzel: Donald Rosenberg never brings a reporter's notebook to Severance Hall.

A classical music writer for more than a quarter-century, he jots notes on the night's program for fear that the flip of a page might be a distraction.

Though many others in the audience have cast aside their formal attire, some even refusing to change from their denim, thePlain Dealer critic sports a coat and tie out of respect for the institution.

Tonight, music director Franz Welser-Möst is conducting the Cleveland Orchestra through the music of the less-popular Strauss brother, Josef, whose waltzes are tinged with melancholy.

But Rosenberg has scrawled his disappointment in the margins before the first piece, "Dynamiden," is over. To Rosenberg, the waltz, beautiful in its blend of the bittersweet and the exuberant, is plodding along in Welser-Möst's hands. The nostalgic moments, he will write in his review, are "overly weighty and restrained."