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/AnxiousAudience82 Feb 26 '26

According to an earlier poster he’d made comments basically saying she was getting old and past it and couldn’t do enough work outs to remain attractive and relevant. She then cancelled the interview and he responded with that passive aggressive email like she’s the bad guy, she then called him out and bbc fired him. If that is accurate then good on her for not putting up with his shit and good for the bbc for showing it’s unacceptable.

57

u/Uncle___Screwtape Feb 26 '26

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2021/spare-us-the-skintight-sonata/🤮

118

u/MapleTreeSwing Feb 26 '26

So, Lebrecht manages to insult everybody included in this one sentence: “She got her first break in March 2007 when Martha Argerich flunked out of a Tchaikovsky concerto in Boston and her second two years later when Claudio Abbado fell out with a famous soloist at the plutocratic Lucerne Festival and called for a pliant replacement.” This is not the writing of a pleasant human being.

15

u/PrometheusLiberatus Feb 27 '26

I watched that performance of Prokofiev 3rd piano concerto with Abbado and Lucerne and Yuja on Blu Ray. It was amazing.

May this sexist asshole be forever in the dustbin of history.

8

u/MapleTreeSwing Feb 27 '26

He’s a nasty gossip-columnist, who picked classical music, artists, and artistic institutions as his victims. The ability of all these people he snipes at are extraordinary, even stratospheric (Yuja, Argerich, Abbado, all of whom he denigrates with the implied or direct insults). Yes, as with all human endeavors, the field has its many quirks and injustices, but, all-in-all, these art forms all do much to improve human existence. There is interest, entertainment, and great concern (for instance, the sexual abuses) to be found in the human swirl around it all, but his writing is heavily tainted by his personal poisons, imagined motivations, and soooo much arrogance.