17/11/2017 Music criticism - Wikipedia

Music criticism
The Oxford Companion to Music defines m usic criticism as 'the
intellectual activ ity of formulating judgements on the v alue and degree of
excellence of indiv idual works of music, or whole groups or genres'. [1] In
this sense, it is a branch of musical aesthetics. With the concurrent
expansion of interest in music and information media ov er the past
century , the term has come to acquire the conv entional meaning of
journalistic reporting on musical performances. [2]
A symphony orchestra

Contents
1 Nature of music criticism
2 History
2.1 To end of 18th century
2.2 Age of Romanticism
3 See also
4 Sources
5 Notes
6 External links

Nature of music criticism

The musicologist Winton Dean has suggested that "music is probably the most difficult of the arts to criticize."[3]
Unlike the plastic or literary arts, the 'language' of music does not specifically relate to human sensory
experience - Dean's words, "the word 'lov e' is common coin in life and literature: the note C has nothing to do with
breakfast or railway journey s or marital harmony ."[4] Like dramatic art, music is recreated at ev ery performance,
and criticism may therefore be directed both at the text (musical score) and the performance. More specifically ,
as music has a temporal dimension that requires repetition or dev elopment of its material "problems of balance,
contrast, expectation and fulfilment ... are more central to music than to other arts, supported as these are by
v erbal or representational content."[5] The absence of a clearly ev olv ed or consensual musical aesthetics has also
tended to make music criticism a highly subjectiv e issue. "There is no counter-check outside the critic's own
personality ."[6]

History

To end of 18th century

Critical references to music (often deprecating performers or sty les) can be found in early literature, including,
for example, in Plato's Laws and in the writings of mediev al music theorists.

According to Richard Taruskin, the activ e concert life of late 18th-century London meant that "the role and the
function of arts criticism as we know it today were the creations of the English public."[7] Howev er, the first
magazines specifically dev oted to music criticism seem to hav e dev eloped in Germany , for example Georg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_criticism 1/4