Saturday, October 20, 2007

Maestros, Masterpieces and Unchecked Facts

The New York Times reports today that Norman Lebrecht's latest book “Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry" has been withdrawn from publication by Penguin Books over at least 15 allegedly false statements about Naxos Records and its founder, Klaus Heymann.

Because Britain's libel laws are different than those in the United States (where the First Amendement is also in force), the American version of the book, "The Life and Death of Classical Music" will remain in publication, but reprinted with several changes to the text.

You may also recall that Mr. Lebrecht wrote a scathing article around a year ago about the supposed factual inaccuracies of classical music blogs. I'm glad to see that journalists are also judged by the same strict standards regarding factual accuracy as classical music bloggers are.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1:40 AM

    Nice information.
    I haven't thought that some musical facts can also be altered.

    ReplyDelete