Philiv KAENNICOTT The recent removal of the Cleveland classical music critic is much more than a little local difficulty

Jalways thought the end of music history would be located in a particular work, say Strauss's Four Last Songs, or the Helicopter String Quartet by Karlheinz Stockhausen. There, future historians would say, was the final gasp of the long noble tradition that began when St Gregory took dictation from the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps we'd realise that the end of music history came with the passing of some old guard of performers, as in the already widespread belief that opera history came to an end with the death of Callas and the retirement of the great divas of her generation.

But no. It seems that the beginning of the end for music history is playing out in Cleveland.

I won't rehash the news beyond this: Don Rosenberg, the well-respected music critic of the Cleveland Plain

Dealer (and Gramophone contributor), has now sued both his employer and the Cleveland Orchestra, for a variety of reasons. The Cleveland Orchestra, he argues, defamed him and interfered with his ability to do his job; and the Cleveland Plain Dealer caved in to outside pressure and removed him from duties he had fulfilled with exemplary skill. Denials have been issued. The orchestra asserts its right to complain about coverage and the newspaper claims it wasn't influenced by outside forces. I have no way of sorting through the facts as alleged and denied.

I got lucky when a similar thing happened to me. The head of another major Midwestern orchestra once stopped by the newspaper where I was working at the time to press his suit against news stories I had written about the group. I saw him coming off the elevator and gave him a cheerio and good luck. I kept my job.

But that was a different era, when newspapers

Recently I reviewed a couple of new books about a conductor. Her best work was done three decades ago and not in New York (America's music capital) but in Boston. These books, like so many other biographies and history, are immensely dependent on reviews, without which there would be very little record of her work, her career and her successes. I'm fascinated by old reviews, not because I trust the musical judgement of the reviewers but because they document what concert life was like at the time. They have vital data, not just about music but about the spirit, manners and even dress of the time I think it's unfortunate that our current ideal of reviewing is so austere, so focused on the purely musical. No wonder we're read only by die-hard music lovers.

Perhaps the people of Cleveland will still read the Plain Dealer's arts coverage with respect.

I doubt it though. Critics function best within newspapers as independent agents. If readers believe that outside forces are influencing, even vetoing, coverage, why bother reading arts coverage anymore? The pall cast by this case will likely cover all the critics at the Plain Dealer.

Which leaves the Cleveland Orchestra in a profound vacuum. Once upon a time it had a history and that history was being written on a daily basis in the newspaper. Blogging won't cover the loss, either. Few independent internet critics have the resources to cover an institution as thoroughly as newspapers can.

The decline in newspaper arts coverage continues, parallel to the decline in newspapers themselves. But the presence in their city of a particularly strong arts group - a major orchestra or theatre company - has helped slow the decline of coverage at some newspapers. If the Cleveland Orchestra had any part in getting Rosenberg removed, which again we have no way of knowing, it would be ironic. It was the orchestra's importance to history-making in Cleveland that helped keep him on the job and he provided the long-term importance of having a reliable record of their work. But that's how it is at the end of days: prescience is the first casualty. (