No surprises, save one.

I had honestly expected rather more from Alex Ross, not that that the music critic of The New Yorker cares what the proprietor of The Penitent Wagnerite expects of him, nor - in fairness - should he, than the surprise over the antediluvian hiring practices of the Wiener Philharmoniker. I thought that everyone knew about the gender gap in the Musikvereinsaal and the Staatsoper.

Certainly, even I have heard about the Sabine Meyer affair. The Berliner Philharmoniker proved that they cared more about their all-male tradition than they did about Herr von Karajan and his choice for clarinet. Von Karajan proved that he didn't need Berlin as much as they might have assumed he did. The orchestra hasn't been right since he left. Certainly not under Rattle.

However, Norman Lebrecht took seemingly everyone to task in an article dated 7 October 2002. I'll remind everyone, as the bilious Mr. Lebrecht does, that the Viennese canned Gustav Mahler. That might say something about their prescience in personnel matters. Of course, and I speak from experience here, all-male institutions tend to guard that part of their identity very closely. Other institutions can take other parts of the identity of an all-male group, but they can never really take the single-sex character and traditions appurtenant thereto.

It's a pride thing. Trust me on this one. My college is one of only two strictly all-male institutions left in the United States (well, three, but that one is a special case).