Philharmonic director compares the United States to North Korea

Posted By Blake Hounshell Monday, February 25, 2008 - 7:49 PM Share

Here's some tone-deaf moral equivalence from New York Philharmonic Director Lorin Maazel that's bound to get some tongues wagging:

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks, should they? Is our standing as a country -- the United States -- is our reputation all that clean when it comes to prisoners and the way they are treated?"

Maazel made the remarks on the eve of his trip to North Korea. But if Maazel was hoping to impress his Pyongyang hosts, he failed. The North Korean press has already decided it prefers the music of Dear Leader:

The Philharmonic will give its highly anticipated, 90-minute concert Tuesday evening. But on Monday, the official KCNA news agency had on its Web site an article discussing the superiority of traditional North Korean music to western music, extolling such native pieces as the piano concerto "Song Devoted to Comrade Kim Jong Il."

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4:33 PM ET

February 26, 2008

Perhaps Maestro Maazel

Perhaps Maestro Maazel should stick to waving his conductor's wand around and leave such pontification to us hacks.

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