Music Criticism in Vienna 1896-1897 records a culture in which music criticism had achieved the status of a minor art-form. The period covered - October 1896 to December 1897 - was an eventful time in Vienna. Bruckner died, then Brahms; Mahler arrived; premieres of works by Czech composers coincided with increasing tension in the Empire between Czechs and Germans; Puccini's La Boheme reached Vienna on its sensational progress around the world; and the great programme music debate continued.

These events and issues were recorded and debated by some two dozen critics ranging from Eduard Hanslick, widely credited with (and blamed for) raising music criticism to an art, to Heinrich Schenker. The focus of Sandra McColl's book is unashamedly on the critics themselves, and her reconstruction of the climate of debate about whatever music or musicians came to their notice.

She illuminates the intellectual climate in which the music was created, performed, and received, and provides a foundation for the study of music criticism in the post-Hanslick generation.