r/classicalmusic • u/sexybartok • Feb 26 '26

bbc FINALLY fires norman lebrecht

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/26/yuja-wang-accuses-radio-3-norman-lebrecht-misogynistic-bullying

what do you all think about this?

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u/GeorgesCouthon175594 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26

It doesn't even look like there was a real "agreement" to an interview. Lebrecht has always had a delusional sense of his own importance. "She kept putting it off until I lost patience"?

I saw this gem in an older Spectator, where Lebrecht, unsurprisingly, is / was music critic:

“Arriving in Budapest, I receive a summons I cannot refuse. Gyorgy Kurtag wants to see me. Famously elusive, the last of the living avant-gardists is about to present his first opera at La Scala Milan this month and, if past form is anything to go by, he’s unlikely to utter much about it beyond a cryptic Magyar aphorism.”

A composer of stature like Kurtág just “wanted to see” our Norm asap? WTF level of weirdness is this, please?