The Guardian’s leading classical music critic, celebrated for fearless and impartial writing

Andrew Clements, who passed away at the age of 75 after a period of ill health, was the Guardian’s chief classical music critic for over thirty years. His reviews exemplified critical integrity—authoritative and intelligent, occasionally enthusiastic, sometimes slightly irritable, always dry-witted but never flashy.

Though music can convey what words cannot, Clements had the rare gift of translating sound into precise language; his writing allowed readers to hear a performance through his descriptions. While he was best known for his unwavering support of contemporary music, his musical interests were far broader than most realized.

Music, however, was only one of his passions. He also loved natural history and Latin American literature, and these interests intersected when he reviewed the world premiere of Peter Eötvös’s opera Love and Other Demons, based on Gabriel García Márquez, at Glyndebourne in 2008. While he welcomed the work, he noted that the production “failed to evoke any real sense of place, despite lavish video projections of writhing bodies, insects, and reptiles; someone might have pointed out to [the director] that there are no chameleons in South America.”

With such a range of interests, Andrew could have pursued many careers but devoted nearly all his adult life to music journalism, working both as an editor and a writer. His first role after university was in the editorial department of the Open University, where he met Kate (Kathryn) Coltman. They married and had two daughters, Lara and Holly, before separating in the 1990s.

Clements was music critic for the New Statesman for 11 years starting in 1977 and contributed to Time Out. He briefly edited the Musical Times in 1987–88 and wrote for the Financial Times from 1979 to 1993, covering both classical music and rock and pop; he later described Brian Wilson’s God Only Knows as the perfect pop song.