Norman Lebrecht

The 1980s saw the publication of various books on music by Lebrecht: Discord: Conflict and the Making of Music (1982), The Book of Musical Anecdotes (1985), Mahler Remembered (1987), and A Musical Book of Days (1987). Following his leave from The Sunday Times, Lebrecht released The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power (1991), which charts the history of conducting, from its rise as an independent profession in the 1870s to its subsequent and purposed preoccupations with power, wealth, and celebrity. The following year he released two books: Music in London (1992), as well as The Companion to 20th-Century Music (1992). In 1996 he published When the Music Stops: Managers, Maestros and the Corporate Murder of Classical Music, 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." He also published Covent Garden: The Untold Story: Dispatches from the English Culture War, 1945–2000 (2000), covering the history of the Royal Opera House. His career as a novelist began in 2002 with The Song of Names (2002), 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. A feature film based on the 2002 novel, The Song of Names, was released in 2019. Directed by François Girard, it stars Tim Roth and Clive Owen. His second book on Mahler, Why Mahler?: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World was published in 2010. In 2014, Lebrecht received the Cremona Music Award from Mondomusica and Cremona Pianoforte in the Communication category, citing that book, and his other books and articles, and recognizing his "commitment... to the diffusion of the music culture at a global level." Another novel, The Game of Opposites: A Novel (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group), was published in 2009 in the US. Lebrecht published a work of social history titled Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847–1947 by Oneworld (UK) in October 2019 and by Simon & Schuster (USA) in December 2019. David Crane in The Spectator called it "Norman Lebrecht's urgent and moving history." Rebecca Abrams in the Financial Times described the book as "[i]mpressively 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." Mark Glanville wrote in The Times Literary Supplement: "Lebrecht's book is an extended meditation on the question of what it is about Jews that has enabled them to change the world in so many different ways. He guides us through his chosen period (1847–1947) in a breathless present continuous, with an enthusiasm that holds the reader's attention. Besides major, familiar figures, such as Einstein, Freud, Marx, Proust and Schoenberg, his kaleidoscope of characters includes Rosalind Franklin, whose important work on the double helix has still not been fully recognized; Leo Szilard, who split the atom; and Albert Ballin, to whom Lebrecht attributes the invention of the hamburger." Lebrecht's next book, in 2023, was Why Beethoven: A Phenomenon in 100 Pieces. The distinguished Beethoven biographer Jan Swafford called it 'a connoisseur's guide to Beethoven recordings'. BBC Music magazine designated it 'one heck of an enjoyable read.' The author Gina Dalfonzo wrote, 'At all times, though, his descriptions are unforgettable. I was startled, amused, sometimes delighted by such critiques as “Paul Badura-Skoda, recording on a Beethoven-era Erard, clunks about like bad plumbing”; or “The space between each note is separated like chess pieces on a world championship board”; or “A 1990 Brussels recording by the Russian exile Mischa Maisky with the Argentine wanderer Martha Argerich sounds like a morning-after hotel breakfast, desultory but deeply affectionate.” One moment he’s vulgar, the next moment he’s classy, but always, unfailingly, he’s interesting.'

Lebrecht's polemical writings have drawn strong and diverse responses; Gilbert Kaplan described him in 2007 as "surely the most controversial and arguably the most influential journalist covering classical music." Robert Craft praised The Maestro Myth as an "exposé of the business practices of orchestral conducting [that] 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". 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. John von Rhein, writing in the Chicago Tribune said that "Lebrecht writes entertainingly and has a wicked ear for backstage gossip" but "Too much of The Maestro Myth in fact betrays the sensibility of a tabloid columnist who cannot distinguish between tattle and truth – and worse, doesn't seem to care." Roger Dettmer, in The Baltimore Sun said that "The book [The Maestro Myth] is a syntactic miasma of received gossip, recycled anecdotes, rickety extrapolations and cultural penis-envy, with a gaffe-account in the hundreds." Martin Bernheimer, in the Los Angeles Times, writes that "One may want to forgive Lebrecht's passing errors, along with his hyperbole. Still, the little slips make one all the more leery of big gaffes". Upon being awarded the 2015 Cremona Music Award, pianist Grigory Sokolov 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". Music critic David Hurwitz published a satirical article titled, "Journalist Norman Lebrecht Dead at 61". After reporting Lebrecht's death from spontaneous combustion in the first paragraph, Hurwitz begins the second paragraph, "Truth be told, and in case you haven’t already guessed, Lebrecht is still with us as far as I know. That said, the above paragraph hardly contains more fiction than a typical Lebrecht article".

* • Also published as Hush! Handel's in a Passion: tales of Bach, Handel, and their contemporaries * * * * * • Also published as Who Killed Classical Music?: Maestros, Managers, and Corporate Politics * * • Also published as The Life and Death of Classical Music: Featuring The 100 Best and 20 Worst Recordings Ever Made * * *