One of the most famous music critics of all time, Eduard Hanslick was born on September 11, 1825 in Prague. Tomasek schooled Hanslick in music. Hanslick studied law and obtained a degree in that field, but his hobby of studying classical music eventually led to writing music criticism for small town newspapers, then the Wiener Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung and eventually the Neue freie Presse, where he was music critic until retirement. An unpaid lectureship at the University of Vienna led to a full professorship and later a doctorate in honoris causa. Hanslick often served on juries for musical competitions. He retired after writing his memoirs, but still wrote articles on the most important premieres of the day, up to his death on August 6, 1904 in Baden.
Hanslick is best known today for his critical praise of the music of Brahms and denunciation of the music of Wagner, an episode in 19th century music history sometimes called the War of the Romantics. Critic Richard Pohl, of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, represented the other side, the progressive composers of the "Music of the Future ", which also included Franz Liszt. They adored Wagner, and in some of their more hyperbolic writings assigned him a semi-divine status; conversely, many of them despised Brahms. Being a close friend of Brahms, Hanslick actually had some influence on Brahms's music, often getting to hear new music before it was publicly premiered. Wagner immortalized, and lampooned, Hanslick in his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as the character Beckmesser.
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