Norman Lebrecht


Norman Lebrecht is a British commentator on music and cultural affairs, a novelist, and the author of the classical music gossip blog Slipped Disc.
He was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph from 1994 to 2002, and assistant editor of the London Evening Standard from 2002 to 2009. On BBC Radio 3, Lebrecht presented lebrecht.live beginning in 2000, and The Lebrecht Interview from 2006 to 2016. He won the 2002 Whitbread Award for First Novel for The Song of Names, at the age of 54. He also writes a column for the magazine Standpoint. Gilbert Kaplan described him as "surely the most controversial and arguably the most influential journalist covering classical music."

Early and personal life

Lebrecht was born in London, England, to Solomon and Marguerite Lebrecht. He attended Kol Torah Rabbinical College in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1964–65, and Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, from 1966 to 1968.
In 1977 Lebrecht married Elbie Spivack, a sculptor, editor, and author. They have three daughters: Naama Shulamit, Abigail Shira, and Gabriella Clara.

Radio and writing career

From 1970 until 1972 Lebrecht was a reporter and producer at the Israel Broadcasting Authority, Israel's state broadcasting network, in Jerusalem, Israel. Then, from 1973 until 1978 he was a news executive in London and New York, for Visnews Ltd., a London-based international news agency. Beginning in 1981 he was a special contributor to The Sunday Times.
From 1994 until 2002 Lebrecht was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph in Britain. From 2002 until 2015 he was an arts columnist and assistant editor of the Evening Standard, writing a weekly column. Gilbert Kaplan wrote that "From his perch in London he has covered and uncovered the classical music world in his full-page weekly column in the Evening Standard which through the internet is must-reading around the world... concentrating on reporting on the organizations and the people managing – or as he often sees it, mismanaging – the classical music world as well as the stars who dominate this culture. All this with a sensibility normally associated with a political reporter or even a police reporter. He was the first to predict the demise of the major classical record companies – now documented in his recently released book The Life and Death of Classical Music."
Beginning in 2000, he presented lebrecht.live on BBC Radio 3, whose output centres on classical music and opera. From 2006 until 2016 he also hosted The Lebrecht Interview, also on BBC Radio 3.
Lebrecht in 2007 launched his classical music blog Slipped Disc, for which he writes. It attracts over one million readers per month. He also writes a monthly column for the culture magazine Standpoint. Gilbert Kaplan described him in 2007 as "surely the most controversial and arguably the most influential journalist covering classical music."
In 2014, Lebrecht received the Cremona Music Award from Mondomusica and Cremona Pianoforte in the Communication category, recognizing his "commitment... to the diffusion of the music culture at a global level."

Books

Lebrecht has written 12 books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages.
His book The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power charts the history of conducting, from its rise as an independent profession in the 1870s to its subsequent preoccupations with power, wealth, and celebrity. When the Music Stops: Managers, Maestros and the Corporate Murder of Classical Music is a history of the classical music business, presenting an exposé of its backstage workings and predicting the collapse of the record industry. Herman Trotter of The Buffalo News wrote that Lebrecht's "widely discussed 1992 book "The Maestro Myth" seems to have been a warm-up for his current magnum opus." Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry is billed as an inside account of the rise and fall of recording, combined with a critical selection and analysis of 100 albums and 20 recording disasters. This latter book, however, has been withdrawn from the market after its publisher discovered that it contained numerous libelous claims.
Lebrecht has written extensively about the composer Gustav Mahler, including in his books Mahler Remembered and Why Mahler?: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World. His interest in contemporary music is reflected in The Complete Companion to 20th Century Music and in the Phaidon Press series of 20th-century composer biographies, of which he was founder and editor. Other books on music he has written include Discord: Conflict and the Making of Music, The Book of Musical Anecdotes, Music in London, and Covent Garden: The Untold Story: Dispatches from the English Culture War, 1945–2000.
His latest book is a broader work of social history titled Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947. It was published by Oneworld in October 2019 and by Simon & Schuster in December 2019. David Crane in The Spectator called it 'Norman Lebrecht's urgent and moving history'. The Financial Times described the book as 'impressively wide-ranging in scope and unflaggingly fascinating in detail.' Tanjil Rashid wrote in The Times: 'Claims to have “changed the world” tend to be exaggerations, but Lebrecht’s subtitle, How Jews Changed the World 1847-1947, seems understated. The world wasn’t changed, it was remade.'

Novels

His career as a novelist began with The Song of Names, a tale of two boys growing up in wartime London and the impact of the Holocaust. It was published in 2001, and went on to win the 2002 Whitbread Award for First Novel. Lebrecht won the award at the age of 54. The Song of Names, a feature film based on the book, was released in 2019. Directed by François Girard, it stars Tim Roth and Clive Owen. His second novel, The Game of Opposites: A Novel, was published in 2009 in the US.

''Slipped Disc''

In the early blogosphere, Lebrecht was critical of some online trends, arguing in his Evening Standard column that "Until bloggers deliver hard facts... paid-for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town". One blogger used this statement to charge Lebrecht with hypocrisy in light of the Naxos lawsuit.
Despite this criticism of classical music blogs, Lebrecht launched his own, Slipped Disc, in March 2007, as part of ArtsJournal.com. In 2014, his blog became a standalone commercial website, supported by advertising and promotions. The blog primarily focuses on classical music industry gossip. When asked by one interviewer whether he found such gossip interesting personally or whether he covered it for the sake of viewership, Lebrecht confirmed that the gossip

Controversies

Lebrecht's polemical writings have drawn strong responses. Robert Craft praised The Maestro Myth as an "exposé of the business practices of orchestral conducting is likely to be the most widely read classical music book of the year". The American composer Gunther Schuller, in his 1998 book The Compleat Conductor, described The Maestro Myth in these terms: "A remarkably knowledgeable and courageous, no-holds-barred exposé of the serious degradation and venality in the conducting business, the wheeling and dealing of the power-broking managements that control most of the music business." Schuller went on to say: "It is sobering reading, to say the least, and is highly recommended to anyone concerned about the integrity of the art and profession of music." On the other hand, music critic Michael White described the book as merely "a compendium of gossip about who earns what and slept with whom to get it." Meanwhile, the opera critic Michael Tanner wrote in The Times Literary Supplement that "this may be the most disgusting book I have ever read". Lebrecht himself was described by musicologist Richard Taruskin as "a sloppy but entertaining British muckraker". Several journalists have noted multiple misstatements of fact by Lebrecht:
An anonymous informant identified as "one of the world's leading conductors" told The Independent that Lebrecht had for years been getting away with "pompous, preposterous judgment" and "inept research".
Lebrecht received the Cremona Music Award 2014. Pianist Grigory Sokolov, upon learning of his being awarded the Cremona Music Award 2015, refused to accept the honour, making this statement on his website:

According to my ideas about elementary decency, it is shame to be in the same award-winners list with Lebrecht.

Despite—or perhaps in response to—the criticisms he has received, Lebrecht has leaned in to such sensationalism on his ad-supported gossip blog. For instance, in a February 23, 2020, blog post, Lebrecht publicly ridiculed the Chinese pianist Yuja Wang for having worn sunglasses during a recent recital in Vancouver, calling her an "attention-seeking" musician who "refused to acknowledge the audience." Having not attended the recital himself, Lebrecht's sole source for this characterization was a Facebook post by the conductor and audience member Tania Miller, who later apologized for the post. It soon emerged that Wang had worn the sunglasses in order to cover up red and puffy eyes, evidence of the extended detainment and intense questioning she had been subjected to upon her arrival at Vancouver International Airport, which had left her in tears and almost caused her to miss the recital. Although he reported Wang's social media post, in which she offered her explanation of the situation, as well as Miller's mea culpa for her Facebook post, Lebrecht has so far declined to apologize for his own ridicule of the pianist. Nor has he to date taken down the original post in which he mocked her.

Naxos lawsuit

In 2007 the founder of Naxos Records, Klaus Heymann, sued Lebrecht's publisher, Penguin Books, for defamation in London's High Court of Justice. Heymann claimed that Lebrecht had wrongly accused him of "serious business malpractices" in his book Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness, and identified at least 15 statements he claimed were inaccurate. The case was settled out of court. As a result of the settlement, Penguin issued a statement acknowledging the baselessness of Lebrecht's accusations and apologising for "the hurt and damage which has suffered". The publisher also agreed to pay an undisclosed sum in legal fees to Heymann, to make a donation to charity, to refrain from repeating the disputed allegations and to seek the return of all unsold copies of Lebrecht's book. Commenting on the affair, Heymann said:

For me it's beyond belief how any journalist in five pages can make so many factual mistakes. It's shocking. Also, he really doesn't understand the record business.

The settlement did not extend to the US edition of Lebrecht's book, but Heymann vowed to seek its withdrawal in the United States.

Books and articles

Books