Norman Lebrecht Books In Order

Novels

The Song of Names (2002)
The Game of Opposites (2009)

Non fiction

Discord (1982)
The Book of Musical Anecdotes (1985)
Musical Book of Days (1987)
Mahler Remembered (1987)
Maestro Myth (1991)
Music in London (1992)
The Companion to 20th-Century Music (1992)
The Moneying of Music (1996)
When the Music Stops (1996)
Who Killed Classical Music? (1997)
Covent Garden (2000)
The Life and Death of Classical Music (2007)
Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness (2007)
Why Mahler? (2010)

Novels Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

Norman Lebrecht Books Overview

The Song of Names

Martin Simmonds father tells him, Never trust a musician when he speaks about love. The advice comes too late. Martin already loves Dovidl Rapoport, an eerily gifted Polish violin prodigy whose parents left him in the Simmonds’s care before they perished in the Holocaust. For a time the two boys are closer than brothers. But on the day he is to make his official debut, Dovidl disappears. Only 40 years later does Martin get his first clue about what happened to him. In this ravishing novel of music and suspense, Norman Lebrecht unravels the strands of love, envy and exploitation that knot geniuses to their admirers. In doing so he also evokes the fragile bubble of Jewish life in prewar London; the fearful carnival of the Blitz, and the gray new world that emerged from its ashes. Bristling with ideas, lambent with feeling, The Song of Names is a masterful work of the imagination.

The Game of Opposites

From the author of The Song of Names winner of the 2002 Whitbread First Novel Award, a powerful new novel that explores the reverberations of love and hate in the story of one man’s unlikely survival. In an unnamed country at the end of a world war, Paul Miller escapes from a labor camp, collapsing after running only a few hundred feet. He is taken in by a young woman named Alice, and by the time she has nursed him back to health, the war has ended. With no one to return to and learning to love the woman who saved him, Paul decides to stay where he is. Over time he marries Alice, has a family, helps to rebuild the village, and, eventually, becomes its mayor. But Paul is inescapably haunted by his life before the war, by his time in the camp, and by the fact that the people who are now his friends ignored for years the labor camp in their midst. When the camp s commander returns to the village, Paul is at last faced with the moral dilemma that will force him to choose between vengeance and forgiveness. The Game of Opposites tells a universal tale of good and evil with extraordinary humanity and poignancy. It is a stunning evocation of the capability for both within all of us.

The Book of Musical Anecdotes

Here is one of the most enjoyable and illuminating books ever published for the music lover, a feast of delightful anecdotes that reveal the all too human side of the great composers and performers. There are stories of appetites Handel eating dinner for three, embarrassments Brahms falling asleep as Liszt plays, oddities Bruckner’s dog being trained to howl at Wagner, and devotions a lovely admirer disrobing in tribute to Puccini. There are memorable accounts of Stravinsky telling Proust how much he hates Beethoven, of Tchaikovsky’s first bewildering telephone call, of Dvorak’s strange love of pigeons, and of Verdi’s intricate maneuvering to keep the now famous melody of ‘La donna mobile’ top secret. There is also wonderful trivia Beethoven loved to cat ‘bread soup’ made with ten raw eggs, along with eccentric strategies Verdi, disturbed by the sound of street organs playing arias from his operas, hired them all for a season and kept them locked in a room. There are examples of musicians munificent generosity Haydn called Mozart ‘the greatest composer known to me, either in person or by name’, and scathing dismissal ‘Have you heard any Stockhausen?’ the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘but I believe I have trodden in some’. Collected from thousands of books, articles, and unpublished manuscripts with historical sources provided in extensive notes, these anecdotes appear in their original form, throwing fresh light on familiar figures in the musical hall of fame. For browsing, reading, research and amuseme*nt, this book is a grand entertainment for concert goers, record buyers, operamanes, gossips and music lovers everywhere.

Mahler Remembered

Gustav Mahler is the most influential symphonist of the twentieth century. In this pioneering study, Norman Lebrecht reveals the man and musician through the words of his contemporaries. Using many previously unpublished documents, he constructs a profile of Mahler even more complex and compelling than that familiar from his letters and the often unreliable memoirs of his widow, Alma. Compassionate or callous, idealistic or pragmatic, Mahler aroused violently contrasting impressions and emotions in those who lived and worked with him. Accounts of the composer include the artist Alfred Roller’s description of Mahler’s naked body, a Na*zi era reappraisal by one of his closest relatives, Natalie Bauer Lechner’s unpublished jottings of Mahler’s childhood, and Stefan Zweig’s report of his final voyage. Together, they form a remarkable and deeply illuminating image of a formidable personality. ‘The effect is cumulative, sometimes contradictory and vivid like a written version of a radio or film portrait.’ Classical Music ‘Norman Lebrecht’s Mahler Remembered is quite breathtakingly interesting.’ Birmingham Post

Maestro Myth

Examining the nature of the orchestra conductor, The Maestro Myth is a vigorous analysis of musical ambition and achievement. Acclaimed by critics, this refreshingly iconoclastic history of a profession which has all too often been the object of sycophantic reverence, is also a chronicle of individual endeavor and ambition. Photos. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content Music critic/provocateur Norman Lebrecht didn’t make the high muckety mucks of the classical music industry at all happy with this iconoclastic book, but he did open a lot of eyes. In 328 fascinating pages, he exposes the foibles and failings musical and otherwise of the great conductors of the last century. Why are there so few really outstanding conductors, and so many surface skimming mediocrities? How did the conductor go from a mere time beater to a powerful, immensely well paid figure who jets from continent to continent and from podium to podium, hobnobbing with presidents and tycoons instead of with other musicians? Lebrecht explores all these factors, along with the history of conducting, and in the process dishes a few good anecdotes. He also shines the light on Ronald Wilford, the superagent of Columbia Artists Management, Inc., who controls the careers of more than 100 conductors and, therefore, controls much of classical music. Lebrecht gets a few facts wrong mostly minor there haven’t, for example, been stockyards in Chicago for some decades, but most of his points are well taken.

The Companion to 20th-Century Music

Twentieth century music has been remarkable for its pluralism. The various styles atonality, neo classicism, nationalism, serialism, jazz, computer music, minimalism, electronics, folklorism, happenings, sheer chance have been far from monolithic, and experimentation has been, perhaps, the century’s only defining feature. With over 2500 entries, The Companion to 20th Century Music is the first book to comprehensively define and applaud this diversity. Norman Lebrecht celebrates variety and innovation, as*sessing composers and musicians according to artistic merit rather than ideological or institutional eminence. He states that his purpose is to demythologize, to enlighten, and to entertain, so he writes in a readable, narrative style, free of jargon and abbreviations. The end result is the perfect companion to the music of our time.

When the Music Stops

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.

Who Killed Classical Music?

Offers a start to finish history of classical music, explaining how the twentieth century has reached a radical tranformation period in which orchestras have become out of reach to most people, left only to the elite who can afford their exorbitant ticket prices.’

Covent Garden

From 1732 until World War II, London’s privately owned and operated Royal Opera House ROH at Covent Garden was reflective of the country it served the rich and noble enjoyed performances in the luxury of the theater and concert hall while the rest of the clas*ses viewed the shows from the dimly lit top gallery. In 1945, with Britain in financial crisis, its cities in ruins, and its citizens living on strict food and fuel rations, Covent Garden was reborn as a public company after economist Maynard Keynes called for state money to support an Arts Council and Royal Opera House, under his own chairmanship, that would resurrect the nation’s fortunes and spirit through the preservation of English culture and performing arts. From that point on, says Norman Lebrecht, ROH, with its Royal Opera and Royal Ballet companies, purported to conduct this postwar national mission while attaching itself to the social elite, creating a recipe for disaster that finally exploded half a century later when the world class Covent Garden was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy. In this comprehensive and unvarnished history, Lebrecht explains the astonishing failure of an institution that was designed to define a nation. Four chief executives came and went in eighteen months, and the off stage dramas, catastrophes, misadventures, and infighting became comic fodder for the press and Parliament. Lebrecht’s illuminating account of the rise, decline, and fall of the ROH during the second half of the twentieth century is situated within the broader context of upheavals and changes in English cultural life that have eroded the very notion of ‘Englishness’ and transformed the country from heroic poverty to heartless wealth. With unprecedented access to private archives and key players, Lebrecht recounts an intriguing tale of special relationships between internal management and successive governments and arts councils, hidden public cash, corruption, anti semitism, and campaigns against homosexuals. He also provides colorful details about the many celebrated performers and personalities, including Maria Callas, Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, Georg Solti, and Kiri te Kanawa, who helped shape Covent Garden‘s storied traditions. Lebrecht concludes by offering thoughts on what the future holds for this notable institution, arguing that Covent Garden should be privatized along the same lines as the Metropolitan Opera.

The Life and Death of Classical Music

In this compulsively readable, fascinating, and provocative guide to classical music, Norman Lebrecht, one of the world’s most widely read cultural commentators tells the story of the rise of the classical recording industry from Caruso s first notes to the heyday of Bernstein, Glenn Gould, Callas, and von Karajan. Lebrecht compellingly demonstrates that classical recording has reached its end point but this is not simply an expos? of decline and fall. It is, for the first time, the full story of a minor art form, analyzing the cultural revolution wrought by Schnabel, Toscanini, Callas, Rattle, the Three Tenors, and Charlotte Church. It is the story of how stars were made and broken by the record business; how a war criminal conspired with a concentration camp victim to create a record empire; and how advancing technology, boardroom wars, public credulity and unscrupulous exploitation shaped the musical backdrop to our modern lives. The book ends with a suitable shrine to classical recording: the author s critical selection of the 100 most important recordings and the 20 most appalling. Filled with memorable incidents and unforgettable personalities from Goddard Lieberson, legendary head of CBS Masterworks who signed his letters as God; to Georg Solti, who turned the Chicago Symphony into the loudest symphony on earth this is at once the captivating story of the life and death of classical recording and an opinioned, insider s guide to appreciating the genre, now and for years to come.

Why Mahler?

Norman Lebrecht noted music critic, novelist, and author of the classic Mahler Remembered explains why Gustav Mahler, relatively obscure in his own time, has become the most popular symphonist of ours. Although he was well regarded as a conductor, when Gustav Mahler died in 1911 his compositions were considered incomprehensible and unlistenable. In the 1960s, with Leonard Bernstein’s passionate advocacy, Mahler s star began to rise. And in 2009, superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel chose a Mahler symphony for his first concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mahler had famously remarked that his time will come. Why Mahler?? explores how we have come to find ourselves in Mahler s time. Norman Lebrecht approaches the question from an unusual and personal angle, discussing how the composer s music has affected his own life as well as the cultural life of the twentieth century. He travels to Mahler s birth and resting places; speaks with surviving members of his family; and delves into why, for many fans, Mahler is not just a composer but a religion, and why, even for less ardent listeners, Mahler s popularity has eclipsed that of Haydn or Beethoven. Equal parts biography, memoir, and appreciation, this is a book that will allow us a fuller understanding than we have ever had of Gustav Mahler and of his abiding place in our musical sensibilities.