THERE'S rarely a shortage of prophets of doom. But Norman Lebrecht presents himself less as a prophet of any sort than as a chronicler of a disaster that's already with us. His latest book, When The Music Stops. . . is subtitled Managers, Maestros And The Corporate Murder Of Classical Music. The victim, Lebrecht would seem to have us believe, is not just ailing but has already been strangled, without any major public outcry or protest.

Lebrecht is no slouch when it comes to self promotion, and secured a pre publication platform for the content of his book in London's Guardian newspaper. He's a lively writer, and it would be no understatement to say that the sensationalist, not to say hysterical tone of his book is effectively eclipsed by the concentrated negativism of his Guordion article.

"Everywhere you care to look, the hallowed halls are ringing hollow . . . The active heart of classical music has stopped beating

As the millennium ends, serious music finds itself facing imminent shutdown." Whatever about the validity of his arguments or the soundness of his conclusions, Lebrecht certainly knows bow to draw attention to his wares.

When The Music Stops is essentially a historical survey of aspects of the classical music business. After a contentious, attention seeking opening musical world "overturned" since 198, a "top conductor" who has "a compulsion for sex with under age boys", allegations of corrupt use of public funds, etc, etc the book settles into a pattern of treating the most juicily provocative conclusions of doom as chapter framing devices.

Lebrecht takes us back to the 19th century of BT Barnum and the "Swedish nightingale", Jenny Lind, to the touring virtuoso careers of Paganini and Liszt. He traces the colourful dealings of managers and impresarios and the emergence of powerful agencies, Hermann Wolff's in Germany, Arthur Judson's Columbia Artists Management Inc. (CAMI) and So Hurok in the US, and, more recently, Mark McCormack's International Management Group (IMG) colonising the world of classical music from a powerful base established through the media management of sport.

Lebrecht's world view is that of a pessimist. He rightfully abhors the greed which drives the upper echelons of the classical music world, which he traces back to Herbert von Karajan's reign at the Salzburg Festival and Ronald Wilford's rise to the top at CAMI.

He deplores demands by performers for fees that cannot covered by box office income alone, and makes allegations of vicious cartels. "This is how it works a state opera house, in order to engage a good tenor, makes a deal with his agent to take on a dud conductor and soprano. An orchestra, to keep its music director, agrees to book most of its soloists from the maestro's agent. For the prize of a world tour, it may have to accept a dreary conductor. For everything, it pays high over the odds."

His heart sinks when he contemplates the agglomeration of power that has taken place through takeovers in so many areas of musical life artist management, the recording industry the publishing industry, and views with distaste the influence of managers on repertoire and programme planning.

The world, and not just the musical world, is full of dangers, and Lebrecht is in fear of them all. He worries about that "once civilised game", cricket (which "became a battleground as bats men donned medieval armour to face projectiles hurled with malicious intent at 120 mph"), about tennis ("modern players lacked zeal because television earnings had enriched them to the point of inertia"), about living in an era in which "average adult attention span did not exceed two minutes".

The historical core of When The Music Stops . . . is an absorbing account of struggles over power, influence and money in the world of music. If the dramatic writing which is intertwined delivered a message of caution rather than catastrophe it would be easy to accept. But Lebrecht thrives on the practice of articulating a thesis which he then attempts to "prove" with a killer example or two. And the focus of attention it has to be said, is often more to do with money than with music.

Take the whole debacle of Sony Classical a record label created out of Sony's acquisition of the US record company, CBS. This fascinating failure merits a whole chapter, in the middle of which we learn that "In Britain, the fifth largest market, Sony sold fewer records than such cottage independent labels as Chandos and Hyperion."

In fact, the success story of Hyperion is altogether more an indication of the driving musical and artistic forces within the record industry than of the plight of the major players, but Lebrecht's "money counts" perspective ensures that consideration of Hyperion and what it stands for is relegated to a couple of pages.

But if Sony Classical is losing millions of its own money, who cares?

WHEN The Music Stops with its concentration on the tick end of musical life, might seem to be of little relevance to Irish musical life. The Wexford Festival sold out last year, and if you've waited until now to go looking for a ticket for this year, you'll find your name being added to a waiting list for cancellations. Maybe Wexford is heading for the heights of Bayreuth, which has dealt with a level and 10 times in excess of its seating capacity.

Niall Doyle of the Music Network acknowledges that "there may be some normal, evolutionary issues in relation to large concerts, but those are things which sort themselves out in the long term. In fact, our problem is trying to meet the demand from existing and newly emerging concert promoters who want to fulfil local demand. That's the only crisis we face."

The generally lacklustre aura surrounding the activities of the National Symphony Orchestra is more an outcome of management failures than of negative international forces.

The spectacular gigs at The Point and the celebrity promotions at the National Concert Hall this year involving the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are areas in which inflated fees and their concomitantly high ticket prices are most likely to be felt. The NCH's concentration on international celebrities, and its failure to engage in creative programming for native artists are local distortions born of the pressures that Lebrecht so painstakingly documents. But even these, it must be said, hardly amount to the doomsday picture he has chosen to hype.