Music critic

Music critic is the job title for a person who writes reviews and reviews e.g. B. written about instrumental and orchestral works , operas , operettas , musicals or other musical stage works or vocal and choral works as well as rock, pop or jazz and other related styles. These can be published in a specialist body as well as in daily or weekly newspapers, but also on radio or television or on the Internet . The training to become a music critic nowadays occasionally takes place as part of a degree in musicology , mostly in contact with various media.

history

In centuries past, music critics were not specially trained for this profession. As a rule, they were composers or musicians who, in addition to a great deal of experience in compositional technique and contemporary music, had a corresponding talent for writing. Since there were no phonographic recordings of musical works until the end of the 19th century, music critics were largely dependent on studying sheet music, scores and piano reductions to create the necessary basis in order to be able to judge a work correctly. Attending performances was also a part of it - however, especially in the first half of the 19th century, these were by no means as self-evident as one takes it for granted today. Nowadays, in addition to attending performances, the basis for evaluating musical works is of course also recordings of CDs and radio broadcasts on the basis of theoretically “reading” or practically performing score studies. A desirable, as extensive as possible knowledge or pronounced interest that goes far beyond "classical music" and covers all art areas and epochs ( literature , fine arts , politics , ethnology , film art or pop and their development from antiquity to the present) is not a prerequisite, but usually puts the published texts on a solid foundation.

The two specialist organs of the 19th century that specialized in music were the Allgemeine Musical Zeitung , published by the music publisher Breitkopf & Härtel , and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, founded by Robert Schumann and Friedrich Wieck .

Well-known music critic of the 18th century

• The historian and musicologist François Raguenet ,
• the keeper of the seal Jean-Laurent Le Cerf de La Viéville

- with a literary dispute, they were pioneers of music criticism.

Well-known music critic of the 19th century

• The composer Robert Schumann ( see also: Florestan and Eusebius ),
• the writer E. TA Hoffmann , who published his reviews under the pseudonym "Johannes Kreisler",
• the composer Hector Berlioz ,
• the composer Claude Debussy , who created the fictional interlocutor " Monsieur Croche " for his reviews ,
• the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ,
• the musicologist Eduard Hanslick ,
• the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche .
• the writer George Bernard Shaw .

Well-known music critics of the 20th century

• The music writer and librarian Wilhelm Altmann ,
• the sociologist and philosopher Theodor W. Adorno ,
• the writer Romain Rolland ,
• the music critic Alfred Einstein ,
• the music critic Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt ,
• the theater , literature and music critic Joachim Kaiser ,
• the music writer and composer Ferdinand Pfohl ,
• the publisher and author Martin Büsser ,
• the music journalist and rock music critic Robert Christgau .
• the musicologist and music critic Wilhelm Sinkovicz .

Music criticism in satire

In his song Der Musikkritiker, the cabaret artist Georg Kreisler scrutinized the profession in a satirical way, as the text says that you don't need to know anything about music, but that you can earn profitable money by writing about music and musicians.

See also

• Music journalism

literature

• Cornelia Szabó-Knotik: music writer. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7001-3045-7 .
• Manfred Wagner : music criticism. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7001-3045-7 .
• Ferdinand Pfohl, also a craft. A criticism of the music criticism. Musikalisches Wochenblatt, Leipzig 1886 p. 125 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Definition on Duden-Online , accessed on November 18, 2018