author
Eduard Hanslick
1825–1904
A fierce and influential voice in 19th-century music, this Austrian critic helped shape how audiences and musicians argued about beauty, form, and meaning in music. He is still best known for a landmark book that defended music's power as something more than storytelling or sentiment.
1 Audiobook
Vom Musikalisch-Schönen Ein Beitrag zur Revision der Ästhetik der Tonkunst
by Eduard Hanslick
About the author
Born in Prague on September 11, 1825, Eduard Hanslick became one of the most important music critics of his century. He studied law, but music writing drew him in early, and he went on to build his career in Vienna, where his reviews reached a wide public.
Hanslick wrote for the Neue Freie Presse for decades and was known for clear, forceful opinions. He strongly supported composers such as Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann, while famously opposing the ideas and music associated with Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt.
His most enduring book, On the Beautiful in Music (Vom Musikalisch-Schönen), first published in 1854, became a major text in music aesthetics. He also taught at the University of Vienna, and his writing still matters to readers interested in criticism, musical form, and the cultural battles of the 19th century.