Norman Lebrecht is a prolific and influential cultural commentator and an award-winning novelist.

He has written eleven books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages. The latest is an account of the rise and fall of the classical record industry, The Life and Death of Classical Music (Vintage, 2007). He is now working on a biography of Gustav Mahler.

Norman Lebrecht's first novel The Song of Names won a Whitbread Award in 2003. His second, The Game of Opposites, is published this summer in the US (Pantheon Books).

Mr Lebrecht was Assistant Editor of the London Evening Standard 2002-9 and is presenter of The Lebrecht Interview on BBC Radio 3.

If you are looking for photos covering every aspect of the life and works of creators, the opera houses and theatres where they worked, the societies they lived in and the personalities with whom they are associated - from Shakespeare to Chagall and Saul Bellow to Stalin - we recommend a visit to the world's largest resource for music images an all creative arts www.lebrecht.co.uk