Two weeks ago we ran this letter in the Weekend feedback:

Thank you, Post-Gazette, for sending a reviewer to our concert this past weekend ("Music Review: Camerata skillfully follows literary trail," April 21). I enjoyed meeting Burkhardt Reiter, and obviously I was very pleased with what he wrote. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, however belatedly, and I wanted to thank Andrew Druckenbrod for his part in the current artistic success of The Pittsburgh Camerata.

When he first joined the staff of the Post-Gazette in 1999, he reviewed our Christmas concert. Let's just say that he was disappointed in us and didn't pull any punches.

Naturally, I didn't enjoy getting such a review, and I wanted to think that his remarks were not justified. As it happened, though, that particular performance was recorded.

Thus does technology make fools of us all.

At any rate, it gave me a great deal to think about, and in the ensuing years I have modified certain aspects of my direction. As a result I am more able to help the singers to live up to their potential as individuals and as a group.

I expect that being a reviewer is a thankless task, and the position can certainly be abused. But thoughtful, informed reviews can provide useful feedback and information for the organizations being reviewed.

This provides an extremely valuable service to the arts community. So thanks to the Post-Gazette for continuing to review classical music when I'm sure there is tremendous pressure to use the space for more lucrative and/or popular content, and thank you for doing your job with integrity.

Rebecca Rollett
Artistic director, The Pittsburgh Camerata

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I was floored by this letter. A critic gets a comment like this only once or twice in a career. Someone telling me that, years later, she realizes I was right with a criticism and that I actually helped improve her group? Practically unheard of!

But I also was really touched by the letter. Indeed, Rebecca's willingness to fight instinctive defensiveness to take a hard look at what she was doing with her choir is rare in this biz. And to her credit her changes (and, of course, her natural growth as a conductor) have helped the Camerata vastly improve in the years following my first review.

Critics differ as much as people do, but I think the best ones write with a mind to educate and enable readers, on the one hand, and to improve performance quality and repertoire, on the other -- all with tactful and respectful writing. I am certainly imperfect at this, but it's a goal and I think it showed in our coverage of the Camerata, a chamber choir here in town.

While it is true I didn't "pull any punches" in the original review, I did include some bona fide positives to comment on. My goal then and now is not to crush groups or show how much I know, but to describe events truthfully (as I hear them) in a collegial style. These are, after all, concert reviews and not crime reporting. And for the record, I didn't revel in writing such a negative review, I actually hate when I feel I must.

In the years that followed, I let my freelancers review the Camerata to get some other voices into the discussion so I wouldn't just be hammering the singers. And in later reviews such as this one, I kept an open mind, which paid off, again, because the choir improved over the years.

It may have looked like Rebecca was buttering me up for future good reviews, but that was nowhere near the truth. She was simply divulging something that many directors would never have the guts to admit, if they would ever do it at all: that they learned from public criticism. I applaud her for that. In a perfect world, we would all not only learn from each other, but want to.