As Martin Anderson rightly said, I can ably defend myself, but I choose not
to do so against such inaccurate, intemperate and illiterate assaults as
Kevin Sutton's.

Let me just clarify one point that Martin raised on matters of accuracy.

No writer is ever empirically accurate. To err is human.

In the general sweep of my writing, I occasionally err in a minor detail.
Details are easy to correct and, when alerted, I always do so in reprints
and later editions. However, I would rather misplace a detail in telling a
greater truth than the reverse, and I have never been faulted on the larger
issues that I have raised.

One of my greater gratifications is meeting conductors of the new generation
and finding that most, if not all, of them have read The Maestro Myth and
When the Music Stops (aka Who Killed Classical Music) and have resolved to
avoid the misdeeds of their predecessors.

Norman Lebrecht