Classical music must woke up and smell the coffee
But the biggest claim to toxicity by the National Review was an article by Ann Coulter published two days after 9/11 saying "This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war". Although Coulter was subsequently dropped by the National Review, an editorial statement from a contributing editor explained "So let me be clear: We did not “fire” Ann for what she wrote, even though it was poorly written and sloppy".
Of course Norman is perfectly free, as I am, to quote any source and take any political position. Similarly the classical music industry is free to spend its promotional budgets wherever it wants. But we never stop hearing complaints about how classical music suffers from scarcity of funding, visa problems, marginalisation in the media, inadequate performance venues, apathy from younger audiences, and lack of educational support. With the classical industry's quasi-official media outlet aligning itself in this way, are these problems really surprising?
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He excuses this tawdry exercise in click bait by saying "We report what is there". Quite so. Just as An Overgrown Path reports what is there before it is redacted.
As to the National Review, who is indeed very conservative (and there is far more in the US these days), I must point out that Jay Nordlinger who writes on classical music (https://www.nationalreview.com/author/jay-nordlinger/) who has a keen ear. . He is a friend and I recommend his articles.
All the best from Germany, Antoine
Spiked is part funded by the Charles Koch Foundation which has strong far-right connections - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/07/us-billionaires-hard-right-britain-spiked-magazine-charles-david-koch-foundation
As my post says, with the classical industry's quasi-official media outlet aligning itself in this way, are the art form's current problems really surprising?
It appears that despite the backlash, Lebrecht appears to either like the notoriety (a rather sick psychological need to be talked about, I suppose) or in fact, embraces these heinous ideologies.
Either way, Lebrecht and his Broken Record have been downgraded to right-wing trash from being merely noisome!
As for Jay Nordlinger, as Mr. Leboyer points out, is INDEED a sane holdover from the cultured conservatism of William F. Buckley, rather than the knuckle-dragging Trump cultists who seem to spew their filth on most of the NR's pages these days!
That said, with the abundance of choices out there, neither Lebrecht nor his cherished source will be missed.
It is those comments, and the large number of 'thumbs up' for the most toxic - that really disturbs me. Norman Lebrecht's rantings are bad enough. But the majority support for them indicates how deeply the malaise has worked its way into classical music.
I find myself asking the question, if this is what the classical audience wants do I want to be part of this? with increasing frequency.