Norman Lebrecht on Trinity College, Cambridge

[Guest]

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2011/04/strange_goings-on_in_the_cambr.html

[kernelbogey]

NL's coy innuendo leaves a nastier taste in the mouth than Trinity's actions. Why can't he come out and say what he means?

[Eudaimonia]

What the hell? Good grief, who put the morality stick up his backside all of a sudden? I wonder what any of these people did (or who they offended) to deserve getting their names dragged through the mud in this kind of public smear campaign.

Lebrecht is a fine one to talk about things being a bit cozy, isn't he. Now there's a man who knows cozy when he sees it!
Oh, but everything's all as it should be, I'm sure.

[ardcarp]

Hang on a moment folks. If Stephen Layton and Trinity College Choir and a composer-in-residence are producing some excellent music, why are we so worried? We live in competitive times. Even your local comp. is having to vie for funds by declaring itself 'an academy of business enterprise' and by getting some superannuated captain of industry on the governing body. Whilst it would be lovely to think that both the capitalist ethos and the old-boy-network could be expunged from Fayre Musick, the world just ain't like that. I'm more worried by the probability that Eriks will turn out to be yet another Part/Whitaker sound-alike. I speak from a standpoint of pure ignorance...and so I hope I'm wrong.

[Nick Armstrong]

NL's coy innuendo leaves a nastier taste in the mouth than Trinity's actions. Why can't he come out and say what he means?

He's having a sneaky little flirt with the law of libel...

[french frank]

I'm more worried by the probability that Eriks will turn out to be yet another Part/Whitaker sound-alike. I speak from a standpoint of pure ignorance...and so I hope I'm wrong.

Here's a sample - the choral conductor is Andris Nelsons.

(I think the Layton-Trinity stories were discussed long ago.)

[Mandryka]

Does anyone take Lebrecht seriously any more (assuming anyone ever did in the first place)?

He's just a dessicated gossip columnist of the music world.

AND he has a cavalier disregard for the truth (as he knows, to his own cost).

[french frank]

Can we be circumspect about how we phrase our comments, please?

[Mandryka]

Can we be circumspect about how we phrase our comments, please?

Apologies if language was not circumspect, ff, but Lebrecht has got himself a 'rep': his last book on classical music was pulped when it was found to contain unfounded allegations against Klaus Heymann. He makes casual references to recordings that have never been made and incidents that never happened. And, as the article cited above illustrates, he does like to cast aspersions.

Really, it's just the Nigel Dempster column with the various toffs' names removed and replaced with those of classical musicians.

[french frank]

Indeed, I'm well aware of the 'inaccuracies', Mandryka, but there could be all sorts of reasons why people get their facts wrong, like short term memory loss, illness ..................

'An apparently cavalier attitude towards 100% accuracy' I have no difficulty with .

[DracoM]

Only just got in to see this thread.

We have indeed been here several times before on the old R3 CE boards - the matter gets aired at some length every time Trinity or Stephen Layton, or Polyphony etc are mentioned and in similar fashion.

As ardcarp wisely says, whatever we may think about it, this is an increasingly usual symbiosis between performers, conposers. It may blur lines we thought we udnerstodd were there, but......? The sad thing is that the results tend to be rather an anti-climax, but who knows this time?

And yes, NL has somewhat revelled in his role of geriatricus terribilis. Is he taken as seriously as he would like to be these days, I wonder?

[ardcarp]

Here's a sample

I'm struggling to find words to describe the unashamed amalgam of styles. Certianly not the econmy of Part. Grieg, Lloyd- Webber, Janacek all floated through my head...and out again.

[Sydney Grew]

Mr. Lebrecht is Britain's most eminent, admirable, intelligent and reliable living critic.

[french frank]

Now, if this had been yesterday ...

[amateur51]

Now, if this had been yesterday ...

I can only assume that Mr Grew has thus dropped his mask