Answering with a unified voice
Mary Sue Morrow · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 1997
[1768] [Marpurg's Historisch-kritische Beiträge and his Kritische Briefe ] have had a good effect, in that music has begun to be viewed as a science again, one that can be judged just like other sciences can. In critical and scholarly journals it is being given its proper place alongside other scholarly things. In this area the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek deserves special praise. The Leipziger gelehrten Zeitungen has likewise taken up the task of announcing and evaluating newly published writings and works that pertain to music. [1769] What does the Leipziger Zeitungen do for musical criticism? It judges music rarely and usually superficially. [1778] Herr Forkel has undertaken the useful business of making musical works known through criticism … still a rather fallow field in need of cultivation, and one more worthy than many others … One writes for the learned and the unlearned; and the large number of the latter, whose approval must nonetheless be considered here, often requires a moderate use of reflective thought and a demonstrative writing style. [1795] At a time when our book catalogs are nearly half filled with magazine titles, it would be tragic for music lovers not to find a single musical journal that in some way continues the thread of its history. To keep this from happening, three different journals in Berlin (which is full of music lovers) recently tried out various formats – a weekly, a monthly, and finally a newspaper. But for naught! Each new attempt failed. The last didn't even last a year. […]