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!