As a genre, musical autobiographies fit comfortably in neither musicological nor literary studies. The vagaries of personal recollection make autobiographical writing problematic as a source of historical information, while the failure of many musical writers to realize that the genre is inherently subjective and highly artificial leads to the condemnation of many musical autobiographies for a lack of literary merit. To play on Goethe, whose own autobiography from 1823 served as a spiritual example for many later artists to follow: musical autobiographies reflect little Dichtung, and even less Wahrheit.

This is, admittedly, less of an issue when considering autobiographies by critics like Eduard Hanslick, given that their instrument of choice was generally the pen, and they thus display greater awareness of literary techniques. However, the role of the critic raises additional problems. As the achievements— and reminiscences—of creative artists (in this case composers, followed at some distance by performers) are generally favored in the longer term over those of their reporters and assessors, memoirs by critics tend to be mined for accounts of more famous, more “worthy” associates. That autobiographies can rarely be a collection of verifiable facts diminishes the value of texts like Aus meinem Leben even further. Hans Lenneberg neatly encapsulates this view: “The memoirs of critics are not nearly as compelling as those of creative artists unless, like Hanslick, they themselves become controversial historical personages and especially when their memoirs include descriptions of many famous contemporaries.”