Western classical music has a substantial history of music criticism, and many individuals have established careers as music critics. However, concert reviews are not always credited in the daily and weekly newspapers, especially those in the early to mid-20th century. This selective list of chief music critics (or equivalent title, influence or status) aims to make it easier to find the likely author of a review, or at least the influence of the chief music critic on what was covered and how.
Leading critics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, clockwise, from left to right:
But The Morning Post in England was the first daily newspaper to regularly publish concert reports, while The Times is generally recognised as being the first to appoint a professionally competent music critic, J W Davidson, in 1846.[5] It has been suggested that critic and librettist Joseph Bennett, writing for The Daily Telegraph from 1870 (then claimed to have the largest circulation in the world), held back the progress of English music due to his antipathy to Wagner, leaving Bernard Shaw as the only modern critic in the UK in the late eighties and early nineties.[6] Throughout the mid-to-late 1800s Eduard Hanslick became a leading figure in Austria, writing for the Neue Freie Presse.[7]
^'G.S': Review of 'British Music of Our Time', in Music and Letters July 1946, Vol. 27 No 3, pp.188-189
^Grey, Thomas S. (2001). "Hanslick, Eduard". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.12341. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^Christopher Morley. Confessions of a Music Critic (2021)
^Tommasini, Anthony (29 July 2009). "Michael Steinberg, Music Critic, Teacher and Program Annotator, Is Dead at 80". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
^Smith, Patrick J. (2009) [2001]. "Steinberg, (Carl) Michael". Grove Music Online. Revised by Maureen Buja. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.26641. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^Bohlman, Andrea F. (2015) [2013]. "Eichler, Jeremy". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2282740. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^Walsh, Colleen (6 March 2017). "Life in wartime, etched in sound". The Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
^'40 years on the Chicago aisle', in The Chicago Tribune, 27 June 2018
^Toye, Francis. 'The Cinderella of Fleet Street', in Music & Letters, Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 1924), pp. 79-84
^"Noël Goodwin". The Times. 3 April 2013. Retrieved 8 April 2022. Published in print on 8 April 2013, p. 49
^Kennedy, Michael; Kennedy, Joyce Bourne (2013) [2007]. "Noël Goodwin". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (5th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-920383-3.
^ ab"Obituary, 'Mr. Richard Capell', in The Times, 22 June 1954, p.10
^Obituary, The Musical Times Vol. 86, No. 1226 (April 1945), pp. 105–108
^ abThe Penguin Music Magazine (1946–1949) and Music (1950–1952), RIPM.org
^ ab'Music Critics and Criticism Today', in The Musical Times, Vol. 101, No. 1406, April 1960
^Sholes, Jacquelyn (2015) [2013]. "Goldberg, Albert". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2282980. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^"Pulitzer Prize winner and former L.A. Times music critic Martin Bernheimer dies at 83". Los Angeles Times. 29 September 2019. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
^Westover, Jonas (2001). "Swed, Mark". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2289537. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^Highfill, Philip and others. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800 (1973), p.187
^Hall-Witt, Jennifer. Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880 (2007), p. 235
^"Julius Korngold". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
^Haas, Michael (2013). "Mahler and His Chronicler Julius Korngold". Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis. New Haven: Yale University Press. doi:10.12987/9780300154313. ISBN 978-0-300-15431-3.
^Lowens, Margery Morgan (2001). "Finck, Henry T(heophilus)". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.09659. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^Reiko ISHII. The Pianistic Legacy of Olga Samaroff: Her Contributions to the Musical World (2014)
^ abRamona H. Matthews. 'Thompson, Oscar', in Grove Music Online (2001
^'Seymour, Charles Bailey (1829–1869)', Lehigh University
^"Richard Aldrich Dies in Rome at 73; Times Music Critic Emeritus, Retired in 1924, Is Stricken on Visit to Brother". The New York Times. 3 June 1937. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
^Newsom, Jon. "Downes, Olin", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, accessed 24 August 2021
^Severo, Richard. "Howard Taubman, 88, a Times Music Critic", The New York Times, 9 January 1996. Accessed 24 August 2021.
^Kozinn, Allan (24 August 2021). "Harold C. Schonberg, 87, Dies; Won Pulitzer Prize as Music Critic for The Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
^[Music Department] (10 July 1991). "Times Names a Chief Critic". The New York Times.
^Morgan, Paula. 'Rothstein, Edward', in Grove Music Online (2001)
^Ceriani, Davide (2016) [2013]. "Tommasini, Anthony". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2289585. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. Retrieved 3 December 2021. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^Cruz, Gilbert; Cooper, Michael (15 November 2021). "A Coda, and Many Bravos, for Anthony Tommasini". The New York Times Company. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
^Obituary, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 10 Feb 1921, p.1
^ abWilson, Steuart, rev. John Warrack. "Strangways, Arthur Henry Fox (1859–1948)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 24 August 2021
^Stephen Plaistow (29 June 2000). "Sir William Glock". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
^"An outward-looking clarity of vision", The Observer, 6 October 1991, p. 57
^'Elwell, Herbert', in Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
^'Critic Robert Finn shared his love of music, bold opinions with readers: An appreciation', in The Plain Dealer, 31 July 2011
^Wakin, Daniel J. (24 September 2008). "Music Critic vs. Maestro: One Loses His Beat". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
^'Cleveland loses its last music critic', from Slipped Disc, 7 April, 2020
^Smith, Patrick J. (2015) [2013]. "Frankenstein, Alfred". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2284355. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^Smith, Patrick J. (2001). "Commanday, Robert". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.47667. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^Kosman, Joshua (5 September 2015). "Robert Commanday, longtime Chronicle music critic, dies". SFGate. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
^A.M.Gibbs. A Bernard Shaw Chronology (2001), p. 342
^Shaw, Bernard (1981). Shaw's music : the complete musical criticism in three volumes. Vol. 1. London: Max Reinhardt, the Bodley Head. pp. 16–17. ISBN 0-370-30247-8.
^David Cairns biography at The Hector Berlioz website
^Tunley, David. 'Covell, Roger David', in Grove Music Online (2001)
^.Brigitte Massin. 'Weber, Johannès', in Grove Music Online (2001)
^Porter, Dilwyn. "Alsager, Thomas Massa". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/41071. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^"Tim Page | USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism". annenberg.usc.edu. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
^Schenbeck, Lawrence (2013). "Midgette, Anne". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2289104. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^"Michael Brodeur will become The Post's classical music critic". The Washington Post.
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