List of chief music critics

Western classical music has a substantial history of music criticism, and many individuals have established careers as music critics. However, concert reviews are not always credited in the daily and weekly newspapers, especially those in the early to mid-20th century. This selective list of chief music critics (or equivalent title, influence or status) aims to make it easier to find the likely author of a review, or at least the influence of the chief music critic on what was covered and how.

Journalistic newspaper criticism of Western music did not properly emerge until the 1840s. Before then, in England, Joseph Addison had contributed essays on music to The Spectator in Handel's era: his famous attacks on the Italian Baroque opera were published in March and April 1711.

Former opera impresario Willian Ayrton began writing occasional musical criticism for The Morning Chronicle (1813–26) and The Examiner (1837–51) and founded the monthly music journal The Harmonicon in 1823.Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians Arts and literary magazines such as The Athenæum (and its critic H F Chorley, writing from 1830 to 1868) sometimes covered musical topics. Specialist music paper The Musical World began publication in 1836 and The Musical Times in 1844. In France, the composer Hector Berlioz wrote reviews and criticisms for the Paris press of the 1830s and 1840s,Bujić, Bojan (n.d.), "Criticism of Music" in The Oxford Companion to Music, Oxford Music Online. as did other French writers such as Gérard de Nerval and François-Joseph Fétis. In Germany, Robert Schumann began giving influential reviews for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in the 1830s. In Austria, Ludwig Rellstab established himself as (according to Max Graf) "the first great music critic".Graf, Max. Composer and Critic: 200 Years of Musical Criticism (1948)

But The Morning Post in England was the first daily newspaper to regularly publish concert reports, while The Times is generally recognised as being the first to appoint a professionally competent music critic, J W Davidson, in 1846. It has been suggested that critic and librettist Joseph Bennett, writing for The Daily Telegraph from 1870 (then claimed to have the largest circulation in the world), held back the progress of English music due to his antipathy to Wagner, leaving Bernard Shaw as the only modern critic in the UK in the late eighties and early nineties.'G.S': Review of 'British Music of Our Time', in Music and Letters July 1946, Vol. 27 No 3, pp.188-189 Throughout the mid-to-late 1800s Eduard Hanslick became a leading figure in Austria, writing for the Neue Freie Presse.

The presence of music criticism continued to grow, and by the 20th century numerous major newspapers had joined The Morning Post and Times in establishing permanent music critic posts, including The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Observer and The Sunday Times in Britain, and the Chicago Tribune, New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times in America. The late 19th and early 20th century saw the development of a uniquely American school of criticism, inaugurated by an informal group of New York-based writers, termed the 'Old Guard', which included Richard Aldrich, Henry Theophilus Finck, William James Henderson, James Huneker and Henry Edward Krehbiel. Other leading critics of this time included John Alexander Fuller Maitland, Samuel Langford and Ernest Newman in Britain, and Paul Bekker in Germany.

After World War II, leading critics included Eric Blom, Neville Cardus, Martin Cooper, Olin Downes, Harold C. Schonberg and Virgil Thomson. Influential music critics from the late 20th century include Martin Bernheimer, Robert Commanday, Richard Dyer, Michael Kennedy and Michael Steinberg. In the 21st century fewer newspapers have dedicated critics for classical music, but writers have still been active, such as Alex Ross at The New Yorker, Anthony Tommasini at The New York Times and both Tim Page and Anne Midgette at The Washington Post.

Zachary Woolfe of the New York Times was reassigned in July 2025, Michael Andor Brodeur's job at the Washington Post was eliminated in February 2026, and the 81 year-old Mark Swed retired in September 2026 from the Los Angeles Times. None of them has a successor. Swed was described by Norman Lebrecht as "America's Last Music Critic".Norman Lebrecht. 'America’s last classical music critic retires', Slipped Disc, 25 September, 2026

List by publication

Aftonbladet (Sweden) Adolf Lindgren, 1874–1905.

The Atlas (UK) Edward Holmes, 1826–1838 (and later).

Berliner Tageblatt (Germany) Gustav Engel (contributor, 1861–1895) Heinrich Ehrlich (1878–1898) Max Marschalk (contributor, 1895–1934) Leopold Schmidt (1897–1927) Alfred Einstein (1927–1933)

Berliner Zeitung am Mittag (Germany) Adolf Weissmans, 1920s Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, 1929–1934

Birmingham Post (UK) Stephen Stratton, 1877–1906.Who's who in music, Henry Saxe Wyndham, 1915 Ernest Newman, 1906–1919.Scaife, Nigel, "Newman, Ernest (1868–1959)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 A J Sheldon (1874–1931), 1920–1931 Eric Blom, 1931–1946. John F Waterhouse, 1950s...? Kenneth Dommett, 1960s-1970s...? Christopher Morley, 1988-2024Midlands Classical Music MakingChristopher Morley. Confessions of a Music Critic (2021)

Boston Daily Advertiser (USA) Louis C. Elson, music editor and critic (1888–1920)

Boston Evening Transcript (USA) Francis H. Jenks, music and dramatic editor (1881–1894) Henry Taylor Parker (1905–1934) Paul Secon (late 1930s?) Olin Downes (1939–1941)

The Boston Globe (USA) Michael Steinberg, 1964–1976. Richard Dyer, 1976–2006. Jeremy Eichler, 2006–2024.

The Boston Herald (USA) Philip Hale, 1903–1934.

Chicago Daily News (USA) Donal J Henahan (1957–67) Bernard Jacobson (1967–1973)

Chicago Tribune (USA) George Putnam Upton, 1861–1881. William Matthews (W. S. B. Matthews), 1878–1886. Frederick Grant Gleason, 1884–1889. Ruth Scott Miller (1895–1984), 1920–1921. Albert Goldberg (1898–1990), 1943–1947. John von Rhein, 1978–2018.'40 years on the Chicago aisle', in The Chicago Tribune, 27 June 2018

Le Correspondant (France) Camille Bellaigue (c1878–1885)

Daily Express (UK) Francis Toye, leader writer, then music critic, 1922–1925.Toye, Francis. 'The Cinderella of Fleet Street', in Music & Letters, Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 1924), pp. 79-84 Arthur Jacobs, 1947–1952.Encyclopedia.com Noël Goodwin, chief music and dance critic, 1965–1978. Published in print on 8 April 2013, p. 49

Daily Graphic (UK) R. A. Streatfeild, 1898–1902.

Daily Herald (UK) Rutland Boughton, from 1912. Spike Hughes, 1933–36. Stuart Fletcher, 1930s. Martin Cooper, 1946–50.

Daily Mail (UK) Richard Capell, 1911–1933."Obituary, 'Mr. Richard Capell', in The Times, 22 June 1954, p.10 Edwin Evans, 1933–1945.Obituary, The Musical Times Vol. 86, No. 1226 (April 1945), pp. 105–108 Ralph Hill, assistant music critic from 1933, chief music critic, 1945–1948.The Penguin Music Magazine (1946–1949) and Music (1950–1952), RIPM.org Percy Cater, 1953–1960s.

Daily News (UK) George Hogarth, 1846–1866. Edward A Baughan, circa 1904–1910. Alfred Kalisch, 1912–1933?

The Daily Telegraph (UK) Campbell Clarke, 1855?–1870. Joseph Bennett, 1870–1906."Joseph Bennett", The Musical Times, Vol. 51, No. 814, 1 December 1910, pp. 769–772 Robin Legge, 1906–1931. (pen name Musicus)'Robin Humphrey Legge', obituary, The Times, 7 April, 1933, p. 18 Herbert Hughes, 1911–1932.Byers, David. "Herbert Hughes – A Centenary Note", in: Soundpost 2 (March 1982) p. 6. Ferruccio Bonavia, 1920–1950.Obituary, The Musical Times, Vol. 91, No. 1285 (March 1950), pp. 101-102 Richard Capell, 1933–1954. Martin Cooper, music critic from 1950, chief music critic, 1954–1976.Obituary, The Musical Times, Vol. 127, No. 1718 (May, 1986), p 291 Peter Stadlen, music critic from 1959, chief music critic, 1976–85.Norris, Geoffrey. 'Tribute to a critic with a true musician's understanding' in The Daily Telegraph, 7 December 1996 Colin Mason, music critic from 1964 Anthony Payne, 1965–1987. Gerald Abraham, 1967–68 (filling in for both Stadlen and Cooper). Michael Kennedy, staff music critic from 1950, joint chief music critic, 1986–2005. Geoffrey Norris, music critic from 1983, chief music critic from 1995 to 2009. Ivan Hewett, music critic from 2002, chief music critic from 2009.

Evening News (UK) William McNaught, 1933–1939. Mosco Carner, concert music critic, 1957–1961.'Music Critics and Criticism Today', in The Musical Times, Vol. 101, No. 1406, April 1960 Leslie Ayre, music and opera (until 1971)

Evening Standard (known as The Standard, 1827–1904) (UK) Henry Frost, 1888–1901. Percy Scholes, 1913–1920. Herbert Antcliffe (music critic from 1915) Arthur Jacobs, 1956–1958. Rick Jones, 1992–2002. Barry Millington, 2002–2020s.

Financial Times (UK) Andrew Porter, 1953–1972. Ronald Crichton, 1972–1978.The Times obituary, 18 November 2005, p 69 Max Loppert, 1980–94. Andrew Clark, from the late 1990s (now retired).Blackwells

Frankfurter Zeitung (Germany) Engelbert Humperdick, 1890–1895 Paul Bekker, 1911–1923.

Glasgow Herald (UK) Malcolm Rayment, until 1983. Michael Turnelty, 1983–2011.

The Guardian (until 1959 The Manchester Guardian) (UK)

George Fremantle, 1867–1895. Arthur Johnstone, 1896–1904.Johnstone, Arthur. Musical Criticisms (1905), with a memoir by Henry Reece and Oliver Elton Ferruccio Bonavia, 1902–1912 Ernest Newman, 1905–1906. Samuel Langford, 1906–1927.Obituary, The Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1927, p. 7 and p.9 Neville Cardus, 1927–1940.Anderson, Robert. 'Cardus, Sir (John Frederick) Neville' in Grove Music Online (2001) Philip Hope-Wallace, music and theatre critic, 1946–1979. Colin Mason, 1950–1964.'Colin Mason', Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music Edward Greenfield, record critic from 1955, music critic from 1964, chief music critic, 1977–1993.Williamson, Rosemary. 'Greenfield, Edward', in Grove Music Online (2001) Gerald Larner, assistant music critic, 1962–5, chief Northern music critic, 1965–1993. Hugo Cole, music critic 1965–1995 Andrew Clements, chief music critic 1993–2025.Andrew Clements, The Guardian'Andrew Clements, Guardian’s classical music critic, dies aged 75', The Guardian, 12 January 2025 Tom Service, from 1999 to 2003?

The Independent (UK) Bayan Northcott, 1986–2009.Williamson, Rosemary. 'Northcott, Bayan (Peter)' in Grove Music Online (2001) Anthony Payne, 1987–1997. Anna Pickard, 2000–2013 (Independent on Sunday).'Cancer claims London music critic', Slipped Disc, 30 September, 2026 Edward Seckerson, chief classical music and opera critic, circa 2009–2012.Edward Seckerson, biography

Los Angeles Daily News (USA) Richard Ginell, 1978–1990.

Los Angeles Times (USA) Albert Goldberg, 1947–1965. Martin Bernheimer, chief music and dance critic, 1965–1996. Mark Swed, 1996–2026. Jessica Gelt. 'The last full-time classical music critic at a major U.S. newspaper retires', Los Angeles Times, 25 September, 2026

The Morning Chronicle (UK) William Ayrton. Honorary musical and literary critic, 1816–26.Highfill, Philip and others. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800 (1973), p.187 George Hogarth, 1834–1844.Hall-Witt, Jennifer. Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880 (2007), p. 235 Charles Lewis Gruneisen, circa 1845–1853.

The Morning Post (UK) John Ella, reviewer 1826–1842.Colin Eatock. Mendelssohn and Victorian England (2009) Howard Glover, 1849–1865. Henry Sutherland Edwards, 1865–1869. William Alexander Barrett (1834–1891), 1869–1891. Arthur Hervey, 1892–1908. Francis Toye, 1925–1937.Colles, H.C. 'Toye, (John) Francis' in Grove Music Online (2001) Scott Goddard, 1928. Robin Hull, assistant music critic, 1934–1937.Musical Times, September 1960, p. 547

Münchner Neueste Nachrichten (Germany)