Time Out London Kills Classical Music?

For decades, Time Out London has served a dual purpose as far as the arts is concerned. It informed readers of the must-see events in one of the world's busiest cities, a place where there could easily be four plays opening and five or six important concerts all on the same night. But Time Out was never only a listings guide. It also prided itself on housing some of the finest writing on the arts in the UK, and the major newspapers would often raid its pages for new blood. However, according to Norman Lebrecht's blog over at ArtsJournal.com, Time Out has given notice to classical music. That's right, Time Out has killed its classical music coverage.

The immediate reaction is to howl with outrage. And music fans - fans of civilisation in general - should be doing some of that. What sort of signals does this send out, and at a time when classical music attendance in London is up, when artistic standards are as high as they have ever been and help to make London a source of pride for the world? Just look at the calibre of conductors the city has attracted to run its major orchestras -- Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Philharmonia, Vladimir Jurowski at the London Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev at the London Symphony (with Simon Rattle reputedly on his way), a revolving principal artists roster of Rattle, Jurowski, Ivan Fischer and Mark Elder at the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Joshua Bell at the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. At the major opera houses, Antonio Pappano and Edward Gardner. Not to mention the rumbling undertow of progressive work that's busy redefining and reinventing.

So we can all agree that Time Out is being neanderthal in the extreme. Absent classical music, London is simply not London. One hopes at least that its fine classical music editor, Jonathan Lennie, gets picked up for bigger and better things.