Music criticism

The Oxford Companion to Music defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres".^[1] In this sense, it is a branch of musical aesthetics.

With the concurrent expansion of interest in music and information media since the turn of the 20th century, the term has come to acquire the conventional meaning of journalistic reporting on musical performances.^[1]