Steven Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Lebrecht is not a Yank, but a pommy British bastard.  I think he writes for
>some London paper.  He has written two books, one claiming that classical
>music will die because star performers make too much money and another
>contending that conductors are to a large extent talentless SOBs.
>
>A lot of it seems to me yellow journalism, hazy on facts and shakier on
>argument, but it *does* get the blood moving, ...  I have seen very little
>evidence in his writing that he actually knows something about music.

He also wrote an encyclopaedic Companion to Twentieth Centruy Music
which I find indispensable.  I don't agree with (or necessarily believe)
everything in it, but friends of mine in the music business seem to think
he does know a thing or two -- just finds it difficult to avoid irony and
sarcasm -- a trait of the British since time immemorial, I fear.

Tim Mahon
British Pommy Bastard in Virginia!