Page 15 - 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. 15
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-299-2.15-21
Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today
Jernej Weiss
University of Ljubljana / University of Maribor
The present monograph Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today looks at
the role and importance of music criticism in the past and present. “If my
lengthy critical activity has had any real use, it exists exclusively in a grad-
ual educative influence on the public.”1 So wrote Eduard Hanslick, one of
the most influential music critics in history, who possessed almost papal
authority and whose severe and uncompromising judgements in the pres-
tigious Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse frequently decided an art-
ist’s fate. The quotation comes from Hanslick’s voluminous autobiography,2
published as he was approaching his seventieth birthday and thus able, it
would seem, to evaluate his past work as a critic with greater objectivity.
Less widely known is that from 1891 onwards Hanslick was also an honor-
ary member of the Ljubljana Philharmonic Society, one of the oldest phil-
harmonic societies in Europe. The fact that as well as numerous eminent
composers and performers the latter’s members included some of the most
important music critics of the day clearly shows that music criticism still
played a central role in musical life, as the nineteenth century turned into
the twentieth.
1 “Hat meine langjährige kritische Thätigkeit wirklich einigen Nutzen gestiftet, so be-
steht er einzig in ihrem allmählich bildenden Einfluss auf das Publikum.” [If my
lengthy critical activity has had any real use, it exists exclusively in a gradual educa-
tive influence on the public.] Eduard Hanslick, Aus meinem Leben, Band 2 (Berlin:
Allgemeiner Verein für Deutsche Litteratur, 1894), 292.
2 Ibid., 296.
15
Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today
Jernej Weiss
University of Ljubljana / University of Maribor
The present monograph Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today looks at
the role and importance of music criticism in the past and present. “If my
lengthy critical activity has had any real use, it exists exclusively in a grad-
ual educative influence on the public.”1 So wrote Eduard Hanslick, one of
the most influential music critics in history, who possessed almost papal
authority and whose severe and uncompromising judgements in the pres-
tigious Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse frequently decided an art-
ist’s fate. The quotation comes from Hanslick’s voluminous autobiography,2
published as he was approaching his seventieth birthday and thus able, it
would seem, to evaluate his past work as a critic with greater objectivity.
Less widely known is that from 1891 onwards Hanslick was also an honor-
ary member of the Ljubljana Philharmonic Society, one of the oldest phil-
harmonic societies in Europe. The fact that as well as numerous eminent
composers and performers the latter’s members included some of the most
important music critics of the day clearly shows that music criticism still
played a central role in musical life, as the nineteenth century turned into
the twentieth.
1 “Hat meine langjährige kritische Thätigkeit wirklich einigen Nutzen gestiftet, so be-
steht er einzig in ihrem allmählich bildenden Einfluss auf das Publikum.” [If my
lengthy critical activity has had any real use, it exists exclusively in a gradual educa-
tive influence on the public.] Eduard Hanslick, Aus meinem Leben, Band 2 (Berlin:
Allgemeiner Verein für Deutsche Litteratur, 1894), 292.
2 Ibid., 296.
15
