ABSTRACT
This interest in methodology in criticism is taken up in Chapter 5, 'Method', and analyses the way in which historical method from English, French and German scholars had a significant bearing on new criticism in the second half of the century and was partly responsible for the fashioning of musicology in England. It outlines how the cult of objectivity apparent in German and English (and French) histories of the nineteenth century affected writing about music in England. The chapter discusses the rise of the comparative method first as a system or process of comparison in the sciences that led to similar scientific approaches in history and music. Examples are given from a range of works in music, literature and anthropology by Henry Chorley, Ernest Newman, Edward Tylor, Cecil Forsyth and Percy C. Buck. The chapter argues that the trajectory from journalism to criticism to higher criticism led to the birth of a nascent musicology.
