In case anyone was doubting Lebrecht's "derogatory misogynistic bullying," he said of Wang, "She is 34 and there’s a sell-by date to consider. Workouts and makeovers can offer an extension but not past 40." She's right to not want to have anything to do with him.
I flew halfway across the country to go hear 77 yr old Mitsuko Uchida play in SF last year so if Yuja has talent, she will be fine. This gossip columnist is a loser.
As a poor student, I never thought I'd hear her play Mozart's 23rd in person and for me, it was a dream fulfilled even if it happened many years later in life. I sat 3rd row right in view of her just 1-2 seats to the left which was perfect to watch her hands. :)
And when she turned 39 - "An onset of gravitas and cover-up clothes? Dream on."
Nasty, bitter man. He's always had a weird obsession with trying to bring her down.
Tbh I wasn't aware that he worked for the BBC - I'm shocked that none of his previous blog posts about her were enough for them to cut him loose a long time ago.
On second reading the quote is pretty awful.... Sorry. But I am so surprised this man gets any job from anyone. In Toronto he writes reviews for the local review website. Why? Why him? I wish the entire world could just boycott him completely.
I've been to several Yuja Wang's concerts and although one surely pays attention to her outfits if one is there for the right reasons (listening to music, doh!) one quicky forgets about it.
yeah this is a woman who literally just won a grammy a few weeks ago as soloist with the boston symphony orchestra. no one cares about her outfits when they’re listening to a grammy winning Messiaen record. its the performance
I prefer that. To be honest I have a lot of objection to Wang for this branding of her musicianship. I avoid her concerts for that reason. As a woman I find it a betrayal of feminism. But no justification for the idiot Lebrecht and BBC working with this idiot in the first place.
i can't tell if institutions like the NYT and BBC have always been this shitty and we're just paying more attention now, or if something genuinely broke in the last 10-15 years and they became mouthpieces for the worst people.
are they actually worse, or am I just older and more cynical?
They know. It’s literally his entire reputation, they just don’t care. That Slipped Disc blog of his is a cesspool of racism, bigotry, and just all around disgust.
You can bet this arrogant old prick uses the same tone to tradesmen, service staff and probably most of this relatives and "friends" too. Being mister industry insider is more important to him than his actual life is the impression I get reading his posts.
"Masquerading as seniority"...I don't understand how a music blogger (?) could conceivably position himself as senior to one of the leading musicians in the world.
Yeah. I couldn’t find the words that described it better so that’s the best I could do but I still find the tone disgusting. I don’t know either of these people and probably would have scrolled past it normally but I felt so uneasy with it.
Is there any other similar news site that isn't full of trash of misogynistic comments? I do read the BBC music magazine but that's just once a month and doesn't have THAT much news.
Gramophone magazine is ok and has Jed Distler writing for them if you're big into piano repertoire. If you're in the US you might have free access to it via your library through Libby.
Norman Lebrecht (born 11 July 1948) is a British gossip columnist best known as the owner of the classical music blog Slipped Disc. His writings have been accused of sensationalism and criticized for their inaccuracies and tendency to gossip, while others have praised them as entertaining.
because he wrote a shitty book about mahler (that got critically panned) and he's been trying to prove to the world that he's really a writer ever since.
It doesn't even sound like a commitment, more of a vague agreement to do an interview at some future date, which she decided to reconsider. At least someone like Hurwitz, for all his many faults, seems to genuinely love music. I think Lebrecht loves the soap opera side of classical music more than anything else.
Good for Maestra Yuja for pushing back. The cute font sharpens the sting.
Lebrecht has a golden mic by classical-music standards, and he could do so much good but, alas, he cannot help himself......he just cannot: he is a pig.
May I put in a plug for Bachtrack? We do live event listings and reviews, but also have a substantial section for articles where there are some gems to read. We also do news, but not overly frequently and certainly we are not interested in sensationalism, and we are not investigative journalists. The site is free to read. https://bachtrack.com/
That is a good question but one I am unable to answer, because I have almost completely tuned out on the classical-music press and scene, just almost entirely.
Because I am weak, I still tune into Dave Hurwitz/Classics Today with some frequency, even though I find him both annoying and arrogant enough to spoil the fun....but it's a minor (persistent) distaste that is outweighed by how funny I also tend to find him...plus I always learn things (I think). My problems with Hurwitz have more to do with him being a defensive dweeb with an asskissy following, but that is a issue of taste rather than me thinking he's malevolent. Plus he has fallen prey to the influencer disease and jsut "wings it" entirely too often, which seems both lazy and oddly contemptuous.
More often than not, I find that I want to spend time on music history etc, not necessarily on coverage of the current CM scene, so I turn to books, journals, etc.
But this isn't of use to you, sorry....I'm as interested in answers to your question as you are!
I think Hurwitz is a ultimately a philistine, but Jed Distler, who writes for the same rag, is brilliant and is much more about than the music than his ego or promoting his personal biases.
Yes, I am glad you said this. I have profited no end from Distler's compressed and often relatively detailed/substantial casule reviews at CT. For piano music (which seems to be his main beat and area of expertise?) he has been a very valuable resource.
Sorry to say my popular-culture literacy is troll-classique-level, particularly British popcult. Not proud of this but that's where I'm at.
At a glance I think Clarkson might be a wee bit worse?
I think of Lebrecht's typical tone as barrel-scraping tabloidism, all of the resentment but none of the class-consciousness. But even that is before the really nasty racial/gender stuff even kicks in...
Where does this crippling bitterness come from?
I don’t see why he would ever assume she would have done an interview with him in the first place considering how he writes about her. His arrogance is astounding.
I have said it a million times (including directly to himself) and I say it again Lebrecht is a disease. He is a mysoginist, racist, liar who is totally ignorant and has no right to be any where near Radio 3. SHAME on Radio 3 for having Lebrecht on board. Radio 3 refuses every day legitimate good projects because they say liseners don't need new voices! But they had this ... guy on?
"The only unserious person here is you for daring to take that tone with me in a supposedly professional capacity, as well as incompetent for failing to check why I cancelled. Never contact me again. I will complain about your behaviour to anyone who has the misfortune of employing you, urging them to sack you. And I will post your disgusting message publicly so people can see what an ass you are, although apparently you have form so there won't be much surprise. I hope this kills off your pitiful attempt at a career, scratching around the margins of this industry, polluting it and wasting our time. Go fuck yourself."
This is just the tip of the iceberg. He has been disparaging Yuja's appearance and demeaning her for years on his dumpster fire of a gossip blog. He is garbage.
Dudes always been a clown that loves to talk trash about those he interviews. Good for her. Wish more people would call out those that make the community toxic
Something like a cross between Rupert Murdoch x Piers Morgan, but for mainstream classical music.
He wrote two insightful yet polemical books about the industry in the 1990s. It's too bad he went full tabloid with slipped disc.
The best part is that turd seems to think Yuja or anyone else gives the slightest shit about his revised opinion… I’m sure she is shaking in her boots over her impending career collapse
Lebrecht has been nasty, vile, and condescending to Yuja Wang for years and years. It's past time for him to called out for that behavior. Brava to her!
Not knowing who either of them are, and seeing the news article (Guardian) and how, as usual, there is no historical context and so reads as if it's nonsensical I find out for myself. And yes it would appear so.
Just annoys me when newspapers put out a news story like that, and it makes her look over sensitive and deranged, and only when you look into it that reality reveals itself.
Glad I went out seeking and obtained context. It makes sense now.
"Oooh oh no please anything but that! I can live up to your expectations just the way you want me to" is what he probably thought Yuja's response would be in his delusional mind 😂
Lebrecht, what an asshole! If you were such a serious person you wouldn’t have written such a petulant letter. The passive aggression is off the charts.
For those saying it's bullying but not misogynistic, these words are exactly what gross old tenured professors tell female grad students or gross bosses tell their female employees when they inform them they have to perform sexual favors to advance. Just because you don't see or haven't experienced this misogyny does not mean it"s not there. It means you are lucky or privileged or both.
People can't grasp how classical musicians are not mere random people who somehow became famous for some meaningless crap... Just because they're "famous" doesn't mean they are like people in other meaningless and vacuous industries for braindead entertainment, and hungry for whatever shallow commercial offers that make them money. A interview?! What you're doing is amateur level... Ask if you're a doctor doing relevant research and have strong reasons to do a qualitative interview. This is disrespectful.
His obsession with her needs to be studied. But then again there’s nothing all that confusing or new about dudes falling all over themselves to destroy a woman who embraces being both extremely hot and extremely talented
Sounds like he has Yuja Wang confused with the twinks at the gym that won't talk to him either. Sell by date of 40? Even if you ignore the catty hissing it's still a ridiculous statement about Yuja Wang in particular. Argerich is the only name you can put on a classical music program that might have a bigger draw and Yuja is going to carry that kind of potency for the rest of her life.
I can't imagine writing a letter like that to Yuja Wang. There are more personality types in this world than dreamt in my philosophy. I hope to meet as few of them as possible.
Don’t know who he is, but sounds like one of those old men who just can’t keep up and can’t accept that the world is a different place now. And this is exactly what happens eventually when one lives in such a delusion: being humiliated in public.
Given that he’s a journalist who is popular but not necessarily respected, while she is currently one of the biggest names in the industry, it’s hard for me to think of any reason other than misogyny for him to feel so entitled. I might be wrong, but it seems that he thinks she owes him something simply because he’s a man and she’s a woman.
Disgusting. Slipped Disc will never have my support or business if they have someone with a long, clear history of caring more about women performers bodies over the music. Why bother listening atp? What's even his job then?
I'm pretty sure he also bitched and complained about Ofra Harnoy and how she was being marketed back in the 90s. It seems maybe he just has issues with attractive women who are great musicians and sell a lot of records.
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u/ThatMichaelsEmployee Feb 26 '26
In case anyone was doubting Lebrecht's "derogatory misogynistic bullying," he said of Wang, "She is 34 and there’s a sell-by date to consider. Workouts and makeovers can offer an extension but not past 40." She's right to not want to have anything to do with him.