Maestros of the Pen: A History of Classical Music Criticism in America

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.