How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get out

TL;DR: The music critic's stock-in-trade consists of the "criticism of art and especially of literature" as mentioned in this paper, and the music critic may accept it grudgingly, keeping a higher end in view, or he may depend on it to hide what may gently be called his lack of intellectual rigor.

Abstract: As a matter of general usage, the term "criticism" is applied to music in an anomalous and notably shallow way. This is regrettable but not easy to change so long as the usage has the consent of musicians and nonmusicians alike. When people say "music criticism," they almost invariably mean daily or weekly journalistic writing, writing which is prohibited from the extended, detailed, and complex mulling over of the matter at hand that is taken for granted in the criticism of art and especially of literature. Journalistic writing about music is posited on and formed by this prohibition. The music critic may accept it grudgingly, keeping a higher end in view, or he may depend on it to hide what may gently be called his lack of intellectual rigor; in any case, the prohibition is central to his metier. The music critic's stock-in-trade consists of the