Page 23 - 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. 23
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-299-2.23-33
Classical Music Criticism: An American Perspective
Alex Ross
Glasbeni kritik, New Yorker
Music Critic, The New Yorker
The American perspective on the future of music criticism is, to put it blunt-
ly, bleak. In 1992, when I moved to New York and began to write about clas-
sical music, every major city newspaper had at least one writer covering the
field full time. I would see four or five fellow critics at performances, doz-
ens of them big premières. When William Bolcom’s opera McTeague had
its premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago that year, one hundred and fifty
critics were in attendance, having gathered for a professional conference.1
In the intervening years, the ranks of the profession have steadily dwin-
dled, to the point that only five American newspapers have full-time clas-
sical critics on staff – this in a country with a population of three hundred
thirty million.2 When we look at the population of classical critics work-
ing full time at national news magazines, we see an even grimmer picture:
myself, alone. If the current trends continue, in twenty years’ time, or per-
haps much sooner, the profession will be effectively defunct in this country.
And classical music is hardly alone in witnessing a dying off of critics.
Colleagues in other disciplines – dance, visual arts, books, even movies and
pop music – report similar struggles. Over the past decade, dozens of arts
critics have lost their jobs or been demoted to free-lance status. There is no
1 Edward Rothstein, “McTeague; A Musical Slice of Grim American Life,” New York
Times, November 2, 1992.
2 Namely: Jeremy Eichler at the Boston Globe, Zachary Woolfe and Joshua Barone at
the New York Times, Michael Andor Brodeur at the Washington Post, Mark Swed at
the Los Angeles Times, and Joshua Kosman at the San Francisco Chronicle.
23
Classical Music Criticism: An American Perspective
Alex Ross
Glasbeni kritik, New Yorker
Music Critic, The New Yorker
The American perspective on the future of music criticism is, to put it blunt-
ly, bleak. In 1992, when I moved to New York and began to write about clas-
sical music, every major city newspaper had at least one writer covering the
field full time. I would see four or five fellow critics at performances, doz-
ens of them big premières. When William Bolcom’s opera McTeague had
its premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago that year, one hundred and fifty
critics were in attendance, having gathered for a professional conference.1
In the intervening years, the ranks of the profession have steadily dwin-
dled, to the point that only five American newspapers have full-time clas-
sical critics on staff – this in a country with a population of three hundred
thirty million.2 When we look at the population of classical critics work-
ing full time at national news magazines, we see an even grimmer picture:
myself, alone. If the current trends continue, in twenty years’ time, or per-
haps much sooner, the profession will be effectively defunct in this country.
And classical music is hardly alone in witnessing a dying off of critics.
Colleagues in other disciplines – dance, visual arts, books, even movies and
pop music – report similar struggles. Over the past decade, dozens of arts
critics have lost their jobs or been demoted to free-lance status. There is no
1 Edward Rothstein, “McTeague; A Musical Slice of Grim American Life,” New York
Times, November 2, 1992.
2 Namely: Jeremy Eichler at the Boston Globe, Zachary Woolfe and Joshua Barone at
the New York Times, Michael Andor Brodeur at the Washington Post, Mark Swed at
the Los Angeles Times, and Joshua Kosman at the San Francisco Chronicle.
23
