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When the Music Stops: Managers, Maestros and the Corporate Murder of Classical Music
The record industry has fallen into the hands of arms producers, music has lost control of its own production. Lebrecht traces the history of the classical music business. He records the final days of serious music as an independent art, and challenges the murderers of classical music.
Paperback
First published July 7, 1997
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About the author
Norman Lebrecht
45 books47 followersNorman Lebrecht (born 11 July 1948 in London) is a British commentator on music and cultural affairs and a novelist. He was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph from 1994 until 2002 and assistant editor of the Evening Standard from 2002 until 2009. On BBC Radio 3, he has presented lebrecht.live from 2000 and The Lebrecht Interview from 2006.
He has written twelve books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages. Coming up in 2010 is Why Mahler?, a new interpretation of the most influential composer of modern times. See Books for more details. Also coming back in print is Mahler Remembered (Faber, 1987).
Norman Lebrecht's first novel The Song of Names won a Whitbread Award in 2003. His second, The Game of Opposites, was published in the US by Pantheon Books. A third is in preparation.
A collection of Lebrecht columns will be published this year in China, the first such anthology by any western cultural writer. A Lebrecht conversation appears monthly in The Strad, magazine of the strings professions.
The Lebrecht Interview will return in July 2010 on BBC Radio 3 and there will be further editions of The Record Doctor in New York on WNYC.
A year-long series of events, titled Why Mahler?, will open on London's South Bank in September 2010, curated by Norman Lebrecht.
Other works in progress include a stage play and various radio and television documentaries.
He has written twelve books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages. Coming up in 2010 is Why Mahler?, a new interpretation of the most influential composer of modern times. See Books for more details. Also coming back in print is Mahler Remembered (Faber, 1987).
Norman Lebrecht's first novel The Song of Names won a Whitbread Award in 2003. His second, The Game of Opposites, was published in the US by Pantheon Books. A third is in preparation.
A collection of Lebrecht columns will be published this year in China, the first such anthology by any western cultural writer. A Lebrecht conversation appears monthly in The Strad, magazine of the strings professions.
The Lebrecht Interview will return in July 2010 on BBC Radio 3 and there will be further editions of The Record Doctor in New York on WNYC.
A year-long series of events, titled Why Mahler?, will open on London's South Bank in September 2010, curated by Norman Lebrecht.
Other works in progress include a stage play and various radio and television documentaries.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 16, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in October 1998.
When the Music Stops is Norman Lebrecht's notorious attack on the classical music business and what he views as its virtually terminal decline. As music critic for the Daily Telegraph he is in a good position to know the current state of the industry, and he is not afraid to be critical or to name names. Condemned by many when it came out - particularly those with an interest in the kind of activities he criticises - When the Music Stops is vitriolic and extremely entertaining.
Lebrecht's thesis is basically twofold. The large agencies gained too great a share in the market for musicians, leading to corruption ("If you want such and such a star, the rest of your opera cast must also be my clients"), particularly as these agencies were also connected with broadcasting, recording and performance venues. The concurrent concentration on a few star names has led to overpriced big fee performers, and this means lower wages for other musicians and an inability on the part of venues and recordings to make a profit. Many artists and managers come in for criticism along the way, but Lebrecht seems to want to reserve his strongest criticism for Herbert von Karajan, with his dubious Nazi past and demand for ever greater control in his autocracies of the Salzburg festival and the Berlin Philharmonic.
There is certainly some truth in the generalities of what Lebrecht says; large fees do not guarantee a good performance. Not even perfection does that; Karajan turned in many soulless performances on record in which not a wrong note could be heard. (I don't really like Karajan's conducting myself either.) It is difficult for one outside the music profession to have a complete enough picture to be able to judge how one-sided Lebrecht's view of things actually is. As he himself points out, there are record labels doing good things and even making money - Lebrecht cites Nimbus and Hyperion among others.
No matter whether or not you agree with his argument, When the Music Stops is great fun to read, as it dissects the music business fearlessly, from the time of Mozart to the present.
When the Music Stops is Norman Lebrecht's notorious attack on the classical music business and what he views as its virtually terminal decline. As music critic for the Daily Telegraph he is in a good position to know the current state of the industry, and he is not afraid to be critical or to name names. Condemned by many when it came out - particularly those with an interest in the kind of activities he criticises - When the Music Stops is vitriolic and extremely entertaining.
Lebrecht's thesis is basically twofold. The large agencies gained too great a share in the market for musicians, leading to corruption ("If you want such and such a star, the rest of your opera cast must also be my clients"), particularly as these agencies were also connected with broadcasting, recording and performance venues. The concurrent concentration on a few star names has led to overpriced big fee performers, and this means lower wages for other musicians and an inability on the part of venues and recordings to make a profit. Many artists and managers come in for criticism along the way, but Lebrecht seems to want to reserve his strongest criticism for Herbert von Karajan, with his dubious Nazi past and demand for ever greater control in his autocracies of the Salzburg festival and the Berlin Philharmonic.
There is certainly some truth in the generalities of what Lebrecht says; large fees do not guarantee a good performance. Not even perfection does that; Karajan turned in many soulless performances on record in which not a wrong note could be heard. (I don't really like Karajan's conducting myself either.) It is difficult for one outside the music profession to have a complete enough picture to be able to judge how one-sided Lebrecht's view of things actually is. As he himself points out, there are record labels doing good things and even making money - Lebrecht cites Nimbus and Hyperion among others.
No matter whether or not you agree with his argument, When the Music Stops is great fun to read, as it dissects the music business fearlessly, from the time of Mozart to the present.
Displaying 1 of 1 review