The attentive listener: Three centuries of music criticism edited by Harry Haskell

Abstract

Comparatively recent musicological investigation into the reception of music has given us an indication of the great depth and wealth of resources to be found within that body of material known as music criticism. That this publication by Harry Haskell (author of The Early Music Revival:A History) sets out to cover three centuries of music criticism in Western culture is a task that can only be regarded as a challenge akin to climbing Mt Everest without oxygen or circumnavigating the globe in a hotair balloon: it is next to impossible to achieve. Despite the weighty intonation of the subtitle (which can be excused given the naturally commercial side of publishing), this ex-critic makes it abundantly clear in the preface that he is not so foolhardy as seriously to attempt such a feat. His intention is not to scale the full heights of Everest, but rather to give some tangible indication and description of its grandeur and the sheer vastness of its extent. At no point does Haskell take on the pretence that his anthology of primary source materials spanning from the beginning of the eighteenth century right up to the present is in any way exhaustive or comprehensive.