For years, the British critic Norman Lebrecht has been throwing firebombs in the world of classical music, denouncing what he sees as industry evils in a provocative style that has sometimes been described as accuracy-challenged.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, in an unusually crushing act of contrition, his publisher agreed to recall his latest book, destroy it, say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sorry\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and promise not to do it again \u00e2\u20ac\u201d all over a few pages discussing Naxos Records and its founder, Klaus Heymann.<\/p>\n
The book, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was released in Britain in July. Mr. Heymann sued the publisher, Penguin Books, in the High Court of Justice, saying the book wrongly accused him of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153serious business malpractices\u00e2\u20ac\u009d based on false statements. He cited at least 15 statements he called inaccurate.<\/p>\n
In a settlement with Mr. Heymann, Penguin issued a statement in court saying it apologized for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the hurt and damage which he has suffered.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It agreed to pay an undisclosed sum for legal fees and to a charity. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Penguin Books has also undertaken not to repeat these allegations and to seek the return of all unsold copies of the book,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the statement said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It appears that some dodgy fact-finding on the part of critic\/writer Norman Lebrecht may have gotten him into trouble – his publisher has withdrawn all unsold copies (in the United Kingdom) of his most recent book on classical music and will have them destroyed. All as a result of a lawsuit brought by the owner\/founder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,117],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-classical","tag-critic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-83","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":95,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/11\/09\/arnica-hits-blogosphere\/","url_meta":{"origin":499,"position":0},"title":"arnica quartet hits blogosphere","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We got a nice mention from Oregonian classical music critic David Stabler in his blog today - it was a nice surprise! Also of interest, Norman Lebrecht, the non-enfant terrible of music pseudo-journalism (imagine that Rupert Murdoch decided to start a fine arts spin-off to the Fox News Channel -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1624,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/21\/nytimes-reviewer-blogs-about-kaplan-concert-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":499,"position":1},"title":"nytimes reviewer blogs about kaplan concert, review","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Steve Smith, music editor for Time Out New York and a freelance reviewer who often writes classical music reviews for the New York Times, writes about his review of the Gilbert Kaplan led performance of Mahler 2 with the New York Philharmonic here.\u00c2\u00a0 Interesting reading, and it shows how critical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":889,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/28\/classical-conflict\/","url_meta":{"origin":499,"position":2},"title":"classical conflict","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I just perused a recent article about the Florida Orchestra and some highly-publicized comments from subscribers about the contemporary programming that is being done by music director Stefan Sanderling. I understand that some patrons don't care for hearing anything written after 1870 or so. Fine. But why do they complain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1595,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/18\/lebrecht-on-kaplan-flap\/","url_meta":{"origin":499,"position":3},"title":"lebrecht on kaplan flap","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Norman Lebrecht has weighed in with his opinion of the blog post by the New York Philharmonic's bass second trombonist David Finlayson which expressed in no uncertain terms Finlayson's low regard for the conducting prowess and musical fitness of amateur conductor Gilbert Kaplan. Read the Lebrecht posting and digest your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":494,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/16\/alex-ross-outs-the-classical-internet\/","url_meta":{"origin":499,"position":4},"title":"alex ross outs the classical internet","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Alex Ross, the classical music critic for New Yorker (and blogger par excellence), wrote a column (which I spotted in the online version today) about the effects of the web\/internet on classical music.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds as though there is a clear new golden age of classical music emerging these days\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/05\/11\/random-thoughts-about-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":499,"position":5},"title":"random thoughts about music","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Here are some thoughts that have passed through my head during the last couple of days of rehearsals: Mozart really is a great composer (Norman Lebrecht notwithstanding) Composer John Adams just might have the best copyist in the business Choruses will, without fail, laugh at all the conductor's jokes Playing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}