Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Crosscurrents in early nineteenth-century criticism
- 2 The rise of the specialist press from 1827
- 3 Early music
- 4 The Austro-German tradition I: The reception of Gluck, Haydn and Mozart
- 5 The Austro-German tradition II: The reception of Beethoven
- 6 The Austro-German tradition III: Weber, Schubert and Mendelssohn
- 7 Contemporary music I: Piano music
- 8 Contemporary music II: Chamber and symphonic music
- 9 Contemporary music III: Opera
- 10 Contemporary music IV: The music of the future
- 11 Contemporary music V: Berlioz
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Principal contributors to the Gazette
- Appendix 2 Personalia
- Appendix 3 Contes, nouvelles, dialogues and other short literature in Schlesinger's Gazette musicale, 1834–46
- Appendix 4 Publishing history of the Gazette
- Appendix 5 Pseudonyms and attributions
- Bibliography
- Index of musical works cited
- General index
Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Crosscurrents in early nineteenth-century criticism
- 2 The rise of the specialist press from 1827
- 3 Early music
- 4 The Austro-German tradition I: The reception of Gluck, Haydn and Mozart
- 5 The Austro-German tradition II: The reception of Beethoven
- 6 The Austro-German tradition III: Weber, Schubert and Mendelssohn
- 7 Contemporary music I: Piano music
- 8 Contemporary music II: Chamber and symphonic music
- 9 Contemporary music III: Opera
- 10 Contemporary music IV: The music of the future
- 11 Contemporary music V: Berlioz
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Principal contributors to the Gazette
- Appendix 2 Personalia
- Appendix 3 Contes, nouvelles, dialogues and other short literature in Schlesinger's Gazette musicale, 1834–46
- Appendix 4 Publishing history of the Gazette
- Appendix 5 Pseudonyms and attributions
- Bibliography
- Index of musical works cited
- General index
Summary
For works which the public can hear every day at the theatre, in the concert hall, in the salon, works where its tastes, its instincts, are flattered, often to the detriment of the true and the beautiful, the critic is only a clerk; he has no mission other than to gather together the support and report opinion; to change it, to modify it, even, would be an impossible task. For works which belong more truly to the realm of art, the critic's mission becomes nobler and more serious. He questions the thought of the composer, penetrates it, unveils it; he is the connecting link which joins the composer to the public; it is up to him not to let his attention wander onto a thousand details which he will pick up later, but to concentrate on the true beauties. (RGM XIX/43: 24 Oct. 1852, 357)
So wrote Léon Kreutzer of the demands Berlioz's music made upon critics and criticism. He thus stressed the element of mission in his rôle as a critic, and his function as a vehicle through whose work the public might understand, appreciate and, finally, judge, works which were initially beyond its comprehension. The Gazette's strength as an educative force lay in the ability and willingness of its critics to accept their rôle as defined by Kreutzer; some of its most compelling episodes resulted from the abandonment, often for commercial reasons, of the same principles.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Music Criticism in Nineteenth-Century FranceLa Revue et gazette musicale de Paris 1834–80, pp. 235 - 242Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995