Music Journalism in London: The Late 1870s and 1880s

Over the last three decades of the nineteenth century, the musical milieu of Victorian London underwent changes that affected the manner in which Verdi was perceived and his final operas conceptualised. A shift in music journalism took place, leading to a new generation of critics whose minds were more open to the challenges of modern music drama. Not only did Wagner’s music come to be generally accepted, but his ideas began to exert an increasingly strong influence over the younger generation. That said, nostalgic commentators continued to lament the sad state of “the Land of Song” and refer to “the