ABSTRACT
The importance of the Daily Telegraph in the formation of the Musical Renaissance lay in the fact that it was the largest-selling quality daily for the period surveyed, with a coverage of the nation's musical life that was both serious and exhaustive. Joseph Bennett was a man of strong and unchanging opinions and a journalist who regarded his profession more as a calling than a craft. In 1870, the year that Bennett was appointed Telegraph critic, the recognised standard-bearers of English music in the compositional field were Arthur Sullivan and, to a lesser degree, George A. Macfarren. Bennett's new Telegraph contract was eloquent testimony to his position as 'patriarch and head of the profession'. Robin Legge, a Cambridge law graduate, was an experienced music journalist by the time he was appointed critic at the Telegraph, having already served for fifteen years on The Times under Fuller Maitland.
