Page 147 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2024. Glasbena kritika – nekoč in danes ▪︎ Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 7
P. 147
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-299-2.147-167
Music Criticism in Ireland
Wolfgang Marx
Univerzitetni kolidž v Dublinu
University College Dublin
Music criticism in some shape or form is probably as old as music itself. As
Christopher Dingle and Dominic McHugh state, “[t]he earliest types of crit-
icism were undoubtedly part of oral cultures and traditions, just like the mu-
sic they would have been discussing”.1 Once a theory of music was developed
and treatises on this topic were written down, they often reveal indirect ex-
amples or hints of criticism.2 However, music criticism as we understand it
in Western societies today is tied to the emergence of newspapers and jour-
nals and the spread of literacy in the eighteenth century, yet was only fully
crystallised during the twentieth century:
Professional music criticism in the form of reviews of live and/or re-
corded performances established itself as a legitimate practice in pub-
lished media during the first half of the 20th century.3
Dingle and McHugh highlight another aspect that became common at
this point: “[T]he straightforward use of the critic’s name [rather than no sig-
1 Christopher Dingle and Dominic McHugh, “Stop the Press? The Changing Media of
Music Criticism,” in The Cambridge History of Music Criticism, ed. Christopher Din-
gle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 695–706, https://www.open-a-
ccess.bcu.ac.uk/10463/.
2 Dingle’s The Cambridge History of Music Criticism provides insightful examples of
this development.
3 Elena Alessandri, Dawn Rose, Olivier Senn, Katrin Szamotulski, Antonio Baldassar-
re and Victoria Jane Williamson, “Consumer on Critique: A Survey of Classical Mu-
sic Listeners’ Engagement with Classical Music Reviews,” Music & Science 3 (2020):
1–2, https:/doi.org/10.1177/2059204320931337.
147
Music Criticism in Ireland
Wolfgang Marx
Univerzitetni kolidž v Dublinu
University College Dublin
Music criticism in some shape or form is probably as old as music itself. As
Christopher Dingle and Dominic McHugh state, “[t]he earliest types of crit-
icism were undoubtedly part of oral cultures and traditions, just like the mu-
sic they would have been discussing”.1 Once a theory of music was developed
and treatises on this topic were written down, they often reveal indirect ex-
amples or hints of criticism.2 However, music criticism as we understand it
in Western societies today is tied to the emergence of newspapers and jour-
nals and the spread of literacy in the eighteenth century, yet was only fully
crystallised during the twentieth century:
Professional music criticism in the form of reviews of live and/or re-
corded performances established itself as a legitimate practice in pub-
lished media during the first half of the 20th century.3
Dingle and McHugh highlight another aspect that became common at
this point: “[T]he straightforward use of the critic’s name [rather than no sig-
1 Christopher Dingle and Dominic McHugh, “Stop the Press? The Changing Media of
Music Criticism,” in The Cambridge History of Music Criticism, ed. Christopher Din-
gle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 695–706, https://www.open-a-
ccess.bcu.ac.uk/10463/.
2 Dingle’s The Cambridge History of Music Criticism provides insightful examples of
this development.
3 Elena Alessandri, Dawn Rose, Olivier Senn, Katrin Szamotulski, Antonio Baldassar-
re and Victoria Jane Williamson, “Consumer on Critique: A Survey of Classical Mu-
sic Listeners’ Engagement with Classical Music Reviews,” Music & Science 3 (2020):
1–2, https:/doi.org/10.1177/2059204320931337.
147
