Joseph Bennett (critic)

[1] In 1865, one of the members of the choir he conducted at Blackheath recommended him to Henry Coleman, music critic of The Sunday Times, who was in need of a deputy.

[1] The position was at first unpaid, but he was soon taken on to the editorial staff of the paper, and within five years was also writing for six other publications including The Daily Telegraph and The Musical Standard.

[2] In 1870, J W Levy, proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, invited Bennett to join the staff of the paper as chief music critic.

[1] In a speech at a banquet marking Bennett's retirement, the composer Sir Alexander Mackenzie said: During his long and valuable services as a member of the staff of the Daily Telegraph – a period of no less than thirty-six years – Mr. Bennett, except, perhaps, acting as a war correspondent, has dealt with every conceivable subject (besides music), including Parliamentary reports.

In 1882, in a review of Hubert Parry's First Symphony, he wrote that the work gave "capital proof that English music has arrived at a renaissance period.

"[4] Bennett developed the theme in 1884, singling out for praise Frederic Cowen's Third Symphony (the Scandinavian) and operas by Arthur Goring Thomas (Esmeralda), Charles Villiers Stanford (Savonarola) and Mackenzie (Columba).

[4][n 1] An article published in 1946 suggested that Bennett's high profile position at The Daily Telegraph (then claimed to have the largest circulation in the world) held back the development of English music because of his antipathy to Wagner, leaving Bernard Shaw (with an equally perverse antipathy to Brahms) as "the only modern critic" in the late eighties and early nineties.

[1] The music publisher Novello & Co reprinted five of these articles, those on Berlioz, Chopin, Rossini, Cherubini and Meyerbeer, as separate volumes.