"he Guardian (UK) thought it would be enlightening (or at least fun)
to let their sports commentators write reviews of cultural events.
The funniest one is the golf columnist's review of a symphony concert
featuring pianist Yefim Bronfman. --Bob

The pianist Yefim Bronfman was born in Uzbekistan in 1958, moved to
Israel in 1973, and made his debut with the New York Philharmonic
five years later (at age 20). This made him something of a musical
boy wonder. The good news is that, 30 years later, he has become a
fully grown, middle-aged wonder. I know this because (a) his
biography in the concert programme tells me so, and (b) when this
concert ended the audience went (and I use the following word
advisedly) bonkers. This reaction shocked me, because I had no idea
that people who were into classical music were also into going
bonkers at the end of a performance. It was a bit like turning up at
St Andrews and seeing the crusty old gentlemen of the R&A
stage-diving after Tiger Woods holed a putt to win the Open.

I am loath to take issue with this visceral enthusiasm. These people
paid good money for their seats, and presumably they knew what they
were getting so excited about. Then again, this is my review, and it
is my opinion that counts -- even though my only previous experience
of classical music was an open-air performance of Mozart's Requiem in
Chicago's Grant Park on a sultry August night, the most memorable
moment of which came when one of my friends turned up with a case of
exceptionally cold beer.

Such philistinism notwithstanding, I am bound to say that the second
classical concert of my life wasn't as good as I thought it would be.
Yefim is a magnificent pianist, as far as I could tell. He played
with tremendous energy and enthusiasm, which is more than you can say
for most of the golfers I spend my working life watching. Even if he
did play any bum notes, which I am sure he didn't, they were lost in
an ocean of other notes.

The problem, at least to my cloth ears, is the music. Brahms' Piano
Concerto No. 1 in D minor, the centrepiece of an evening devoted to
the composer, has come to be seen as a masterpiece. But as it is
longer than three minutes and not as immediately catchy as, say, Be
My Baby by the Ronettes, it failed to hold my attention.

This is a terrible admission, no doubt. But in my defence, my
attention remained fixed, tangentially at least, on what was going on
inside the concert hall - which is to say I spent most of the night
pondering why it is I would much rather have spent it watching sport
- any sport. The answer, I think, is this: uncertainty. The essence
of sport, and therefore of sports writing, is the unscripted nature
of its narrative and the uncertainty of its outcome. Yefim Bronfman
is a genius, no doubt, but he didn't write his own script - Brahms
did - and the ending hasn't changed in the last 150 years, and won't
for another 150. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, writes a new
concerto every day, each one better than the last."