Pete Townshend Critical Essay | Critical Essay by David Walley

Critical Essay by David Walley

[Seeing the Who live, one is] overpowered by the sheer musicianship and raw power of the group. The more I think of the Who as a group, the more I feel that they make their biggest impact as a visual experience…. Seeing Tommy performed knocked me out up front, but hearing Tommy, with the libretto in my lap, is another and vastly different matter.

Before I proceed further, one thing I must clarify. Tommy is NOT an opera. A real opera is acted as well as sung; it has well-defined parts and recitative and many other characteristics. Tommy is a rock cantata: in other words, a piece of music which is primarily vocal—a sung piece. Yeah, the St. Matthew Passion is also a cantata, but that's not copping Townshend's vibes, nor making any real comparisons, although Tommy could be easily called a "Passion" in the traditional sense. In many senses,...
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