Judgements of Value: Selected Writings on Music

This book brings together a collection of the writings of the late Martin Cooper, chief music critic of the Daily Telegraph from 1954 to 1976, a well-known broadcaster on the BBC, and the author of several books and translations. The topics discussed range widely over 19th- and 20th-century music, opera, literature, philosophy, religion, and the nature of criticism itself. The writings reveal a deep and private sensibility, and a critical mind of exceptional distinction which finds expression in a wry and elegant style even when dealing with matters of everyday concern to the working critic. This collection has been edited by Martin Cooper’s son, Dominic, clockmaker, photographer, and the author of four novels. Born in 1910, Martin Cooper was educated at Winchester and Oxford before going on to study music under Egon Wellesz in Vienna. On his return to England in 1934, he wrote music criticism for the London Mercury, and then, after the war, for the Daily Herald and the Spectator. In 1950 he joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph where he became chief music critic in 1976. He was also the editor of the Musical Times from 1953 to 1956. In the yeas of his retirement he concentrated entirely on translating; but books that he had published earlier included Gluck (1935), Bizet (1938), Opéra Comique (1949), Russian Opera (1951), French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Fauré (1951), Ideas and Music (1965), and Beethoven: The Last Decade (1970). He died in 1986.