How did music journalism develop from coverage of 19th-century classical music?

Music journalism evolved from the 19th-century tradition of musical criticism, which initially focused on academic and theoretical evaluations of classical music. During the early 19th century, criticism was heavily influenced by the Romantic era, leading to a descriptive style where writers—often composers themselves, such as Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Hector Berlioz—interpreted music through poetic or literary lenses.12

The field shifted significantly in the mid-19th century with the work of Eduard Hanslick, often called the father of modern musical criticism. His influential book, The Beautiful in Music (1854), rejected the subjective, descriptive approach of the Romantics in favor of an analytical, autonomous view of music. This transition toward rationalism and structural analysis paved the way for 20th-century criticism.2

Simultaneously, the rise of the professional music critic paralleled the growth of the concert industry and the establishment of major orchestras. As newspapers and magazines expanded, music coverage moved from specialized academic journals to broader daily press, eventually incorporating diverse genres like jazz and rock as technology and public interest evolved.314