Beethoven keeps on cycling

In 2006 Norman Lebrecht got it wrong when he wrote "in fact, no label had issued a (Beethoven) symphonic cycle in three years, and none was likely to do so again".

In 2008 Lebrecht is proved wrong again by Paavo Järvi's acclaimed new cycle with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen on RCA. Hopefully the CEO of the Bremen orchestra hasn't reviewed any of Norm's books in the past.
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Goodbye conductor - hallo composer

Overgrown Path's web logs over the past few days showed little uplift in traffic to my wide range of Herbert von Karajan articles. Most of the increase that happened came either from searches for the conductor's political and sexual predilections or from Japan, which has always had a special love affair with him. This analysis was mirrored in the mainstream media where, despite strong promotion from Deutsche Grammophon and EMI and some unashamed puffery from Simon Rattle, there was little interest in the Karajan anniversary other than tabloid-style trash from Norman Lebrecht and Ivan Hewett. The music industry loves an anniversary and two years ago we celebrated Shostakovich to death. So why did Herbert's birthday party fall so flat?

Many will say it was because of Karajan, but I disagree. Love him or hate him Karajan was a very high profile conductor who has never struggled in the past for column inches. Nobody came to the party this week-end because our love affair with the conductor is finished. The twentieth-century was the age of the maestro, and the big industry names held a baton - Walter, Toscanini, Furtwängler , Karajan, Boult, Beecham, Barbirolli, Klemperer and others. But as the millenium approached new names emerged, and they were holding a pen instead of a stick. The three 'Bs' of Britten, Bernstein and Boulez were on the cusp, and they have been followed by Stockhausen, Reich, Adams (header photo), Maxwell Davies, Adès and many more. Crucially, a number of these composers are, or were, fine conductors not just of their own music but also of composers as far back as Bach.


As we say goodbye conductor and hello composer major festivals such as the 1938 London Music Festival built around Toscanini (programme above) and the Salzburg Easter Festival created as a vehicle for Karajan have become things of the past. Their replacements are events like the South Bank Centre's Messiaen celebration (poster below), and try finding the conductors (one of who is Pierre Boulez) on that poster.

None of this means conductors will disappear. Orchestras need them just like they need concert masters. But how many readers can name the concert master of the Los Angeles Philharmonic? The celebrity conductor is a dying breed and it is interesting to speculate what that means. The record companies (again) stand to lose most as they depend on personalities to sell CDs. It is almost impossible to get composer/conductors such as Thomas Adès to work the press. Which explains the increasingly shrill attempts to promote increasingly young conductors who are only too willing to co-operate in photo opportunities. When they finally read the writing on the wall (which will probably take as long as it did for them to realise the impact of MP3s) will we see labels signing exclusive deals with composers instead of conductors? And before anyone tells me that contemporary composers don't sell I'd remind them that Naxos' second best selling album in 2007 was Philip Glass' Symphony No. 4 (23,000 units) and the fourth best seller was John Adams' Piano Music (14,000 units). Remember that it took four years for Glenn Gould's 1955 of the Goldberg Variations to sell 40,000 units.

Will we see back catalogue exploitation of neglected conductor/composers of the past such as Antal Dorati? Will we see Thomas Adès recording Mozart concertos directing from the keyboard, and Peter Maxwell Davies recording Mahler and John Adams Beethoven from the podium? Will more composers follow the example of Philip Glass (Orange Mountain Music) and Peter Maxwell Davies (MaxOpus) and establish their own record labels? Your guess is as good as mine. But it is definitely goodbye conductor and hallo composer. Watch this space.


Read more about an artist extraordinaire here.
Toscanini programme from my personal collection and (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness

Two contrasting responses from America to my post Third rate music on Naxos' American classics?

Flinging merde - 'Granted some of the stuff that Naxos has packaged in that series has been less than distinguished but operating in a cultural establishment where critics treat every cow patty ever dropped by the likes of Alwyn (above) and Bax and Finzi and Michael Tippitt (sic) as if it were fois gras, Clements is hardly in a position to fling merde' - from Sequenza21, and I'm sure Norman Lebrecht would approve of that misspelling of Tippett.


The true beauty of the effort - 'Personally speaking I expect listener reaction to concert music is heavily dependent on emotional mood and cultural/historical context . The concept of "ratings" and "tiers" for composers is pretty much an over-rated specialization of critics, which serves the purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness.

My father is the American composer George Frederick McKay (photo below), who liked to say that "if the criticism of a composer's music gets to be really sharp, then he knows he is writing some good pieces." He also once got a big laugh from hearing concert goers in seats in front of him commenting in reverent tones that he was dead.

His music is really like a big layer-cake; in other words, in his young life, he composed jazz-infuenced pieces and romantic songs. Later, his music became more socially aware and radical-- "ultra-modern" toward the end of the 1930's at a time when he mentored John Cage in Seattle both encouraging the younger composer musically and inviting him to the family home for dinner and philosophical discussion.

Following this, my father launched into a loving involvement with American folk-music, and completely cast aside the "opus' system, which he considered a rather crazy European artifact. As to making critics of his music "cringe," he probably would have enjoyed this, since he had a mischievous and rugged nature derived from his upbringing in the West. His music is far from simple, and in many cases has deep religious and philosophical meaning. Much is yet to be revealed, since he composed nearly 1000 various works.


It is doubtful that any of us will ever get to hear high-level performances of all his works, since most conductors are still under the threat of being pummeled by Symphony Society grannies if they get too far afield from the standard concert fare. We have a commercial radio station in Seattle that broadcasts a full month of Mozart works, with one Mozart piece every hour, which gives me the urge to say "give me a break, guys!" Also noted is the absolute repetition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons by glamour-puss groups of all stripes.

So with this rather subjective outburst, I have implicated myself forever as an indivdually thinking patriotic, and maybe not so clever commentor. I should add that, although I loved Mozart's music in context to the movie "Amadeus," he never will or would have the chance to equal the magic of George Frederick McKay's interpretation of Native American themes that most likely stretch back 10,000 years in human history.

This is the true beauty of the effort John McLaughlin Williams has made to create wonderful recordings of the legendary music of America, that many have forgotten. My father's initiative in his mature years was to merge his music with the natural music of his homeland and speak of international peace' - comment from Fred McKay on my Naxos American Classics post.

Any American readers who still think Michael Tippett is an English pastoralist should listen to my Future Radio programme on March 2 when I will be playing Tippett conducting his own Second Symphony; while this Tippett post with its world view brings this path full circle.
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Gruppen for the facts

We all knew it was true. But here is forensic confirmation.
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If I were predicting the future ...

On July 28, 2007 Overgrown Path ran a story saying 'The BBC is launching “Proms Idol ... the winner of the BBC2 show will take charge of an orchestra during the Last Night Of The Proms at the Royal Albert Hall next year.

Today's Guardian reveals 'The BBC has just commissioned a new reality TV series called Maestro, in which seven celebrity would-be conductors will go head-to-head on the podium before orchestras and choirs. The winner of the series, expected to air on BBC2 this summer, will step up to conduct an orchestra during the Last Night of the Proms at London's Royal Albert Hall in September'.

On February 1, 2006 Overgrown Path ran a story predicting Classical music nightclubs are the way to go, and followed it up on June 9, 2007 with a report about live classical music in nightclub.

Today's Guardian runs a double page spread on how Cool young clubbers in Berlin are flocking to a night with a twist: all the music is classical, and orchestras play live.

On January 7, 2008 Overgrown Path ran a story saying 'If early music is the surprise of 2008 perhaps EMI's new owners will make their acquired assets work for them by releasing a box of the complete David Munrow recordings with decent documentation instead of sub-licensing them for peanuts to other companies while also giving them away piecemeal on their own budget label?

Today's Guardian runs a story headlined Artists' ally makes his exit from EMI.

On January 14, 2007 Overgrown Path ran a story about Taser stun guns headlined The zeitgeist of the YouTube generation.

Today's Guardian runs a full page story headlined 'For those who like a little music with their personal protection: the Taser that plays MP3s'.

As Norman Lebrecht wrote in the Evening Standard on 8 November, 2006 'Until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town.'

If I were predicting the future ...
Photo of where the Overgrown Path begins (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. And yes, that is this post on the screens - I was predicting my next article. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Happy long tail to all my readers

Right at the end of 2007 the Observer ran a story that shames the whole classical music community, including this and other blogs. It was about the BBC's rejection of director Tony Palmer's Vaughan Williams film, a news story that was featured prominently by the Observer and several music blogs, including this one. It now appears that the rejection letter quoted in the coverage was a publicity-seeking hoax, although the identity of the hoaxer remains unclear - read the full account here.

This story neatly sums up a year in which relevance became the order of the day, and swapping the long tail of culture for the short head of the mass market became the number one priority. 2007 saw Norman Lebrecht's attempts to go mass market hit the buffers, while William Barrinton-Coupe's efforts on behalf of his late wife met a similar fate. It was also the year when the Royal Opera House went mass market with its advertising, BBC TV went mass market with its classical music programming, Deutsche Grammophon went mass market with its CD covers, John Foulds went mass market with his World Requiem, the BBC Proms went mass market with its crooners, and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra went mass market with its concert attire and politics.

'Relevance' is in and the long tail is out. But it doesn't always work as Dominic Sandbrook recounts in his excellent book White Heat, a History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties? 'Many Protestant churchmen, alarmed at their inability to reverse the long decline in church-going, concluded that 'relevance was the order of the day'. According to Grace Davie, the churches, besotted like so many other institutions by the 'desire to be modern', consequently 'looked to the secular world for a lead and borrowed, in some cases rather uncritically, both its ideas and forms of expression'. It was in this period, for example, that liberal churchmen first began wielding guitars, introducing handclapping into the Anglican rite and generally conducting themselves like frustrated pop singers, a tactic that failed to attract many new parishioners and often alienated those still loyal to the Church of England'


In 2008 On An Overgrown Path will stay focussed on the long tail, and now playing is Satori (1999) for solo harpsichord by John Palmer. A long way from the Anglican rite, Satori describes the spiritual awakening during Zen meditation. This penetrating work, with its long silences is influenced both by the composer's friendship with John Cage and by his deep involvement with Japanese culture. Adventurous and thought-provoking new music from the enterprising Sargasso label, which revels in promoting the long tail. Check out good length MP3 samples here.

The CD has excellent sleeve notes by Peter Burt, including this one for the title work - A koan, for instance, is that type of apparently nonsensical question by means of which students in the Rinzai school of Zen are trained to transcend the limitations of verbal reasoning, the most famous example perhaps being Hakuin's 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?' (My own mischievous answer has always been that it is the audience reaction at the average new music concert).

Peter Burt neatly disposes of the long tail versus mass market conflict with these words - All this picturesque 'Japaneseness' might make it sound as though the listener to this CD is in for a comfortable session of 'New-age' easy listening. But be warned: someone who submits himself to the ascetic severities of Zen monastery life could hardly be expected to opt for facile and superficial artistic solutions, and the musical language of John Palmer's work is uncompromisingly Western and modernist. It demands of its listener, no less than of its creator, an attitude of disciplined seriousness. Deeply rewarding listening.

Which eloquently sums up the long tail listening experience.


* Celebrate the new year with some more long tail - my David Munrow on the record programme is being repeated on Future Radio by popular demand at 7.00pm on New Year's Day, click here for the audio stream.

Sand mandala header photo from my 2007 post about the Free Tibet campaign. And no apologies to all those who think politics, music and sport don't mix. With the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 it is a subject I'll doubtless be returning to. Sand mandalas are a motif in Martin Scorsese's film Kundun which also deals with the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and I featured Philip Glass' score for the film on internet radio in November. My middle photo is from Going Buddhist which featured the music of Lou Harrison, the footer image is from Zen and the art of new music about Jonathan Harvey's music, and there is another contemporary music Koan here from James Tenney. Lots of long tail links for the new year.
All photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

More on Norman's pulped fiction

The UK press (and some bloggers) have been strangely reluctant to cover the Norman Lebrecht versus Klaus Heymann case which I reported here more than a week ago. But today's Independent on Sunday reports:

"This week Penguin agreed to pulp all copies of Lebrecht's book, which criticised Mr Heymann. Behind the scenes the victory has been greeted with glee by figures in the classical music world who have yearned for Lebrecht's wings to be clipped.

Mr Heymann said yesterday ... "The book made me look like a shit, so something had to be done," he said. "When Lebrecht talks to people he doesn't take notes so he confuses and confounds what people say."

(Lebrecht's) polemics on the music industry have also made him many enemies, which is why this humiliation has been met with glee. Such is his power as a critic that few are willing to speak publicly against him. One of the world's leading conductors, however, told the IoS that Mr Lebrecht has, "for years, been getting away with "pompous, preposterous judgment" and "inept research".

Lebrecht said he could not comment on the Naxos case, but added: "The book contains a handful of minor errors, as most books do. They are being corrected." He also denied not taking notes or confusing his facts.".

But while we are on the subject of errors and confusing people a couple of points for the Independent On Sunday.

Their headline - 'Music critic's book is pulped as Penguin loses defamation case' - is confusing. Penguin didn't lose the case, it was settled out of court.

And it is an error to say on Oct 28 that 'This week Penguin agreed to pulp all copies of Lebrecht's book.' The pulping announcement was made ten days ago, on Oct 18, and was reported on this blog more than a week before the IoS ran the story.

Which is, presumably, why I received this email last week:

..........................

Lebrecht v Naxos‏
From: A.Johnson at independent.co.uk
Sent: 24 October 2007 16:46:38
To: overgrownpath at hotmail.co.uk

Hi there. I'm a reporter for the Independent on Sunday and I'm writing an article for this week's paper about the Lebrecht book on Naxos being withdrawn. I'd really like to speak to someone (off record if necessary) about the rights and wrongs of the row, the standing of Naxos in the classical music world, and the standing of Lebrecht. My numbers are below.

Everything in confidence of course.

Thanks for reading this. Please do not post.

Andrew Johnson
The Independent on Sunday

................................

Sorry about posting Andrew. But as a journalist famous for his polemics once blustered -"Until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town".

Follow the Lebrecht paper trail here.
Image credit KMX Shredding, who are doubtless rubbing their hands. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Understatement of the week

Norman Lebrecht has written a big piece about Korngold.
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Lebrecht is right - Naxos is not in same league

Thought-provoking email about the Naxos v Lebrecht case:

'Lebrecht is right in so far, as Naxos product is not in the league of a fine opera recording of the 60 to 80s with top cast, recorded by DECCA or even DG, Philips or EMI. Their product will still sell in 50 years, whereas Naxos product does not have this unique quality, neither sonically nor artistically. A recording with a top approved cast with a conductor like Karajan (above) is still a seller today, even if recorded "only" in Stereo. The 5.1 surround sound format is no quality asset, for classical music this is not the decisive feature. That is the great difference to Naxos or other label products.

Sincerely, L. Ruschin'

Now read another reader suggesting that Naxos dumbs-down production standards.
Header image shows Herbert von Karajan with Christa Ludwig during a playback at the 1969/70 sessions for Götterdämmerung, which, as L. Ruschin says, continues to sell today. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Norman Lebrecht and unchecked trivia

'For years, the British critic Norman Lebrecht has been throwing firebombs in the world of classical music, denouncing what he sees as industry evils in a provocative style that has sometimes been described as accuracy-challenged.

On Thursday, in an unusually crushing act of contrition, his publisher agreed to recall his latest book, destroy it, say “Sorry” and promise not to do it again — all over a few pages discussing Naxos Records and its founder, Klaus Heymann.

The book, “Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry,” was released in Britain in July. Mr. Heymann sued the publisher, Penguin Books, in the High Court of Justice, saying the book wrongly accused him of “serious business malpractices” based on false statements. He cited at least 15 statements he called inaccurate.

Despite the suit, Mr. Heymann said he did not think the book had a “negative impact” on his reputation. “But,” he added, “I don’t think somebody like Lebrecht should get away with 20 or 30 errors in a five-page article" ' - Reports today's New York Times.

'Until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town ... that is the real scandal and it could have been exposed had the blogger taken the trouble to check his scoop ... the supposed fraud shows up the flaws of a classical blogosphere that trades in unchecked trivia ... online blogs won't become required reading until they start focussing on the facts’ - Wrote Norman Lebrecht in the Evening Standard on 8 November 2006.

Don't say I didn't tell you. But read the alternative view here
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A year of stories that had to be told

On An Overgrown Path is three years old today, and this is post number 1171. The site has received close to a million hits, and the word count is now not far short of a staggering half a million. That is twice as many words as Alex Ross' new book, and half as many as today's BBC Radio 3 presenters use to introduce a single concert.

The last twelve months gave me the opportunity to explore several new paths. Two of the most rewarding articles to write were those on the black Guyanese conductor Rudolph Dunbar and the Afro-French composer Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Appropriately, yesterday was the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, and I am writing this before we dash off to the radio studio to present a studio discussion on the slave trade.

My radio co-presenter is my wife Sorojini. As usual several different paths intersect here. Sorojini was born in Georgetown, Guyana, as was Rudolph Dunbar. A colonial labour system brought the families of both to that country from different continents. And Guyana has been involved for more than 150 years in a border dispute with Venezuela, a country that has featured frequently on the path, and one that I will return to later

Internet radio is another new path I've been exploring. Future Radio, here in Norwich, has been very generous in giving me carte blanche to present an hour of contemporary music every Sunday at 5.00pm British Summer Time. This has meant that listeners around the world have been able to listen to rarely heard music by Mikis Theodorakis, Alan Hovhaness, William Howard Schuman, Thea Musgrave, Pierre Boulez, Edmund Rubbra and others.

Benjamin Britten has, of course, remained a constant on the path throughout the year. In April I wrote one of the year's saddest posts, and marked the death of Britten's friend and collaborator Mstislav Rostropovich with a small personal appreciation.

On An Overgrown Path's commitment to contemporary music has increased. Posts on Pierre Boulez , Bruno Maderna, Jonathan Harvey and Lou Harrison were particularly well received, and it was fun to see my tribute to Conlon Nancarrow reminding some high profile US sites that it was the tenth anniversary of Nancarrow's death.

Less well received were my posts on the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and Gustavo Dudamel. But I continue to remain uneasy about their volatile mix of musical vision, politics and commercialism, and believe that Venezuelan flags (see above via Deceptively Simple) and union jacks (see below via BBC) are both out of place at the BBC Proms. Youngsters just having fun? Please tell that to the families of the millions of young people who died last century defending freedom of speech. At last the paid-for media, and some other blogs, have also started to question the link between music and politics in Venzuela. And the answers given by Dudamel certainly do not make me change my views.

Of course the Venezuelan music education system is a fantastic way of rejuvenating classical music. But others are also doing great work, and my sequence of reports on the Aldeburgh Festival showed that 'reaching out' and 'selling out' don't always have to rhyme. It was also pleasing to see Aldeburgh Music recognising the importance of music blogs.

In February this year classical music had its 'Diana moment' with the Joyce Hatto 'forgery' revelations, and I tried, without much success, to introduce some balanced reporting. The Joyce Hatto story was, by miles, the year's biggest storm in a teacup.

I received far more satisfaction from writing articles about Elisabeth Lutyens and Elizabeth Maconchy, while the story of Timothy Brady's opera Edalat Square, about the hanging of two young gay men in Iran, just had to be told. My research for the post on Reginald Goodall was also important, not least because the path led to Rudolph Dunbar.

The year also had a lot of laughs. And I am very grateful to Norman Lebrecht for providing most of them.

It was also pleasing to write that youth is not a time of life, but a state of mind. Particularly as this modestly successful blog is written by a 57 year old.

I must apologise to my many overseas readers for the seemingly endless articles deploring the state of BBC Radio 3 and the Proms. But when an old, trusted and loved friend is in agony you desperately want to change things. And a hat tip to Nicholas Kenyon for sending me the longest, most opaque, and least read article posted On An Overgrown Path in the last twelve months. Thanks Nick, and I look forward to receiving my signed copy of your new history of the Barbican Centre.

On a personal front it was very moving to see my photo feature on the inspirational Taizé Community become such an important web resource via Wikipedia. Father Roger's ecumenical community remains a beacon of light in an often dark world.

Apologies to the many readers who emailed me and did not receive an immediate reply. The comments that appear on the blog are the tip of a very large iceberg. Unfortunately some eloquent messages remain buried beneath many from Nigerians generously offering to share their financial windfalls with me.

I hope that the next twelve months will be as rewarding as those just ended. But before my new blogging year gets into its stride On An Overgrown Path will be taking a sea interlude (that's the East Anglian equivalent of a hiatus) in September. In past years I've run the blog at arms length while away, but the size of the readership, its topicality and the risk of legal challenges now make that impractical. So after several more posts, on Monday (Aug 27) I'll be locking the blog down for four weeks, a gap that I'm sure that the many other fine music blogs will fill perfectly well.

Thank you readers for your support, comments, and corrections. In the coming months I will keep following the path mapped so eloquently by Libby Purves in Radio: A True Love Story.

'All that you can do is to make - and publicise - the best and most passionately well-crafted programmes you can think of. Ratings have to be watched, but calmly and with a sense of proportion. You have to believe that if even one person is swayed, or inspired, or changed, or comforted, by a programme, then that programme has been worthwhile'.


Top image credit Deceptively Simple. Lower image credit BBC. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The art of unchecked trivia

"And the work of Michael Nyman arose chiefly from his rejection, as a critic and composer, of ascetic, Bolulez-led modernism" - this week's gem from the peerless journalist who also wrote about "the flaws of a classical blogosphere that trades in unchecked trivia."

For more on Pierre Bolulez follow this path.
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BBC Proms - dumbing down is contagious

Today's Observer seems determined to follow the BBC down the slippery slope to editorial oblivion. No less than two pages are devoted to a vacuous article whose title, 'From Iggy to Gigli: my journey to the Proms', says it all. Observer journalist Sean O'Hagan is given some free tickets to help puff the BBC Proms to the crossover audience, and reports: - At other times, though, I was totally baffled by what I was hearing. And some of it was simply was too much to take in, particularly, though it pains me to say it, the more modern stuff: Adams's Symphony No 4, and especially Sam Hayden's cacophonous Substratem.

If we ignore the misspelling of Sam Hayden's Substratum and a later incorrect reference to the "Soweto String Quartet", I am sure John Adams' would be surprised to learn that he has written four symphonies, and even more surprised to find one of them confused with Charles Ives Symphony No. 4, which was in fact performed in the July 17 Prom.

But as another journalist and BBC presenter, the inimitable Norman Lebrecht, recently wrote: - Esoteric as it may seem, the supposed fraud shows up the flaws of a classical blogosphere that trades in unchecked trivia. Classical blogs are spreading but their nutritional value is lower than a bag of crisps. Unlike financial blogs, which yield powerful and profitable secrets, classical web-chat is opinion-rich and info-poor. Until bloggers deliver hard facts and estate agents turn into credible critics, paid-for newspapers will continue to set the standard as only show in town.

Now read about a great journalist who wouldn't have made those kind of mistakes
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Kurt Masur and earnest Cuban festivals

Consternation yesterday as Boris Johnson announced he was seeking the Conservative party nomination for London mayor. Conservative MP Johnson (left) has some interesting political views, as you can read here. These include accusing Labour of "waging a middle-class war against "the bottom 20% of society - the group that supplies us with the chavs, the losers, the burglars, the drug addicts and the 70,000 people who are lost in our prisons ..."

Many wonder how Conservative leader David Cameron can support such a candidate, but award-winning Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee explains all - "Johnson's best asset is the devoted support of London's only proper newspaper. The Evening Standard - same stable as the Daily Mail - detests Livingstone: no surprise they gave Johnson front-page and leader-column coverage, with an article by himself (all about himself, not much policy) and lavish praise from the rightwing columnist Andrew Gilligan: 'Boris has come to save our great city from Ken's ghastly empire of bureaucrats, bendy buses and earnest Cuban festivals.'"

Norman Lebrecht is assistant editor and columnist of the Evening Standard. Last night BBC Radio 3 started a new series called The Lebrecht Interview. It was good to see that Norman's first subject was Kurt Masur, who not coincidentally is conducting a BBC Prom tomorrow. In his position as director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra Masur was a central figure in Wende, the peaceful revolution that started in Leipzig, toppled the Communist dictatorship, and opened the door to German re-unification in 1990 . That revolution was started by the bottom 20% of East German society, many of who were lost in prison.

Read more on that 1989 revolution in Leipzig here.
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Is this a record?

Classical music blogging's poster boy Norman Lebrecht is back on BBC Radio 3 today (June 30, and for seven days via Radio Player) with a programme about classical recordings that he thinks should never have been made. Rumours that there is a sequel about radio programmes that should never have been made have been denied.

The photo is from my post about something that will be in short supply at 12.15h today on BBC Radio 3 - joy of music.
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Music blogs and the only show in town

Good for music blogs to see the official Aldeburgh Festival website quoting reviews from the Times, Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times and On An Overgrown Path.

I wonder if a certain music journalist still thinks "until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town"?
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Norman conquest

I see that Norman Lebrecht has been in New York. Couldn't you have kept him over there?

Nobody’s perfect …

From Media Monkey’s Diary in today’s Guardian : - Poor Norman Lebrecht, and we never thought we’d say that. First the Sunday Times’s Michael White, in a review of Lebrecht’s book, Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness, called him “the Jilly Cooper of music journalism”. Ouch. Then outgoing BBC Proms boss Nicholas Kenyon had a pop, saying of his successor, Radio 3 controller Roger Wright: “he did give Norman Lebrecht a radio programme, but then again nobody’s perfect.” Double ouch! Lebrecht, the Evening Standard’s arts supreme and assistant editor was on holiday last week. Monkey wonders if he had time to dip into Jilly’s latest b0nkbuster.

Nicholas Kenyon’s comment is a first-class case of musical dog eating dog, and here’s another great example.
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Just the facts …

Message received today - That e-mail exchange with Norman is amusing, seeing as there was never a point when funding for the cycle was in question. Like many American orchestras, we are paid for recordings by our own organization, and under our contract, we receive a certain amount of guaranteed media pay regardless of whether CDs and broadcasts occur or not, so it's always in our management's best interest to record and broadcast. BIS picks up the cost of production and engineering, and everybody's happy.

Sorry to disappoint Norman, but as usual, he's talking nonsense with no real knowledge of the situation. As far as I know, I'm the only member of the Minnesota Orchestra (above) that he's met, and I suspect that his animosity came from an old grudge against our CEO at the time, who once penned a highly unfavorable review of a Lebrecht book...

Sam Bergman, viola Minnesota Orchestra

Now it would be nice to hear the facts about those BBC choral evensong tapes which Norman reported were “erased”.
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