Why did the growth of newspapers and periodicals help musical criticism spread in the 17th and 18th centuries?

The growth of newspapers and periodicals in the 17th and 18th centuries provided the essential infrastructure for musical criticism to transition from private discourse to a public, systematic practice. This expansion across Europe allowed writer-musicians—such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Burney, and Johann Mattheson—to reach a wider audience and establish a formal platform for their ideas.1

The emergence of these publications enabled the creation of journals dedicated entirely to the subject, such as Mattheson’s Critica Musica (1722) and Johann Adolph Scheibe’s weekly Der critische Musicus (1737–40). By providing a consistent medium for discourse, these periodicals allowed critics to engage in ongoing debates regarding musical theory and practice, often characterized during this era by an intense focus on the rules of composition. This shift toward print media transformed musical criticism into a recognized field, setting the stage for the more analytical and descriptive approaches that would follow in the 19th century.1