John Sullivan Dwight (1813-93) was, for much of the nineteenth century, America's leading music critic. Born into a musical family and educated at several premier Boston schools, he fell under the spell of New England Transcendentalism and befriended Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, and others of a similarly progressive mindset. Dwight resided at the socialist/utopian community of Brook Farm where he learned...