Maestros Of The Pen: A History of Classical Music Criticism in America [Hardcover]

Mark N. Grant (Author), Eric Friedheim (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 19, 1998

Among reviewers of the arts, classical music critics are perhaps the least esteemed by those they write about. Yet these often-despised beings are also, for better or worse, key players in the world of classical music. Mark N. Grant deftly traces the development of music criticism in the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present, building a comprehensive portrait gallery of our significant music critics and examining the evolving role of classical music in American cultural life.

Grant's informative overview savors and compares the critics' prose styles, evaluates them as taste makers who helped codify the canon, and shows critics in action as movers and shakers who persuaded community leaders to build concert halls, got conductors hired and fired, explained classical music to the masses on the radio, championed difficult new music, and rescued unjustly neglected repertoire.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When Wagner pronounced that "the immoral profession of music criticism must be abolished," he was voicing an opinion over which he hardly had a monopoly, least of all among fellow composers. Yet for all the ambivalence that has attended this profession--the seesawing can't-live-with-them, can't-live-without-them attitude--its influence on the larger culture has been vast, and its shrinkage in significance during our time therefore all the more dramatic. Mark Grant's absorbing study presents a fascinating perspective on what is really at stake in the practice of writing about music by mapping out the various roles played by music critics in the United States, from the early days of the Republic until the present.

Grant tells the story (engaging on more levels than one might initially expect) of music criticism's evolution from shallow dilettantism into an enterprise that, as practiced by such titans as James Gibbons Huneker and H.L. Mencken, itself became an art. He considers the influence of critics as evangelists for music and as tastemakers, incidentally leaving the reader impressed with how little of the current canon debate is in fact new. The privileged position of music is apparent from the critical attention writers such as Poe, Emerson, and Whitman (one of the country's first great opera advocates) devoted to it, as from such judgments that music is a medicine "to cure the infectious business fever" in America. Grant also considers the now nearly vanished breed of the composer who doubled as critic, represented by Virgil Thomson par excellence. He ends with speculations about the current perilous state of music criticism--obviously parallel to that of the classical music tradition itself--and some of the new possibilities posed by the Internet.

While Grant's scope is clearly not encyclopedic, he traces the most important lines of critical thought during the last two centuries, only occasionally betraying his own neoconservative bent (in his appraisal of John Rockwell's pluralism, for example). This book is therefore indispensable to anyone interested in the practice and significance of critical writing about all of the arts. Moreover, it makes for a highly pleasurable read, thanks not only to Grant's wry sense of humor but above all to the choice squibs he generously quotes and to the thoroughly human vignettes he sketches of the pantheon of American music critics. --Thomas May

Review

Engaging and often amusing, the book is serious, but without a whiff of pedantry. -- The New York Times Book Review, Dana Gioia

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Northeastern (November 19, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555533639
• ISBN-13: 978-1555533632
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,278,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating survey of history of music criticism, April 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Maestros Of The Pen: A History of Classical Music Criticism in America (Hardcover)

If, like myself, your opinion of music critics has ranged somewhere between tolerance and contempt, prepare for a delightful awakening. In this survey, Mark Grant proves that critics are not only sensitive, dedicated intellectuals -- they are actually human. Grant makes his point via anecdotes, sketches and quotes that bring his cast of personalities to life. And what personalities! From the super-curmudgeon, H.L. Mencken, to the super-artist, Virgil Thompson, you'll meet an array of scholars and scoundrels who, whether you like it or not, helped to shape your tastes. You'll discover that their ranks included not only professionals, like Deems Taylor and Olin Downes, but such unlikely "amateurs" as Emerson, Whitman and Howells. You'll also discover Mark Grant, himself a composer and musicologist, through whose readable, unpatronizing style we share a love for his art and for those sometimes-noble, sometimes-naughty music critics.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars virtuosic study of music criticism in America, February 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Maestros Of The Pen: A History of Classical Music Criticism in America (Hardcover)

I highly recommend Mark Grant's Maestros Of The Pen to all lovers of classical music as well as to performers, composers and followers of the American cultural scene, past and present. When I picked up the book, I was expecting to wade through a dry but informative academic tome; instead, I found myself being swept along by Grant's witty verbal virtuosity applied to a surprisingly fascinating subject . In addition to his concise historic synthesis of the critics and their aesthetic, Grant's endeavor also features a consistently stimulating subtext, juxtaposing the "then" and the "now". By reaching backward and forward in time, Grant personalizes his research and gives his work a tremendous contemporary resonance.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thumbs up!, August 13, 2007

By 

PJK - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maestros Of The Pen: A History of Classical Music Criticism in America (Paperback)

Grant's book is an interesting, well-written read. He flexes the muscles of his vocabulary - I suggest reading along with a pocket dictionary, as I guarantee he'll throw in some $5000 words that common parlance does not normally encounter. That aside, the book is a fascinating account of music criticism in America - worthwhile for scholars in both music and journalism!