Norman Lebrecht

The Game of Opposites: A Novel

by Norman Lebrecht

In an unnamed country at the end of a world war, Paul Miller escapes from a labor camp, collapsing after a few hundred feet. Taken in by a young woman he learns to love, Paul decides to stay where he is, and,...

Why Mahler?: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World

by Norman Lebrecht

Although Gustav Mahler was a famous conductor in Vienna and New York, the music that he wrote was condemned during his lifetime and for many years after his death in 1911. “Pages of dreary emptiness,” sniffed...

Why Mahler?

by Norman Lebrecht

A century after his death, Gustav Mahler is the most important composer of modern times. Displacing Beethoven as a box-office draw, his music offers more than the usual listening satisfactions. Many believe...

The Song of Names

Costa Book Award for Best First Novel 2002

by Norman Lebrecht

Martin Simmonds’ father tells him, “Never trust a musician when he speaks about love.” The advice comes too late. Martin already loves Dovidl Rapoport, an eerily gifted Polish violin prodigy whose parents...

The Life and Death of Classical Music: Featuring the 100 Best and 20 Worst Recordings Ever Made

by Norman Lebrecht

In this compulsively readable, fascinating, and provocative guide to classical music, Norman Lebrecht, one of the world’s most widely read cultural commentators tells the story of the rise of the classical...