An outstanding critical voice, his deep knowledge and love of music was evident in everything he wrote
The Guardian’s long-serving and much admired classical music critic Andrew Clements died on Sunday aged 75 after a period of illness.
Clements joined the Guardian arts team in August 1993, succeeding Edward Greenfield as the paper’s chief music critic. His appointment was clinched by a personal recommendation to the editor from the late Alfred Brendel, who argued for Clements to get the job on account of his deep understanding of contemporary music. For the next 32 years, Clements ranged across all fields of classical music in his writing for the Guardian, and often beyond.
An outstanding and distinctive critical voice, his deep knowledge and love of music was evident in everything he wrote. He was hugely respected by his fellow critics and the value of his very hard-won five-star reviews was inestimable. While ill health prevented him reviewing live events since March 2025, his last CD review was published on 2 January.
Clements’ musical interests were transformed while still at school as a young flautist when he encountered a work by Pierre Boulez that opened the door to his lifelong engagement with, and encyclopaedic knowledge of, contemporary music. For decades afterwards he could remember almost every concert he ever attended. In all fields of music, he was unafraid to ruffle feathers, happy to stick to his well-formed convictions, and refusing to follow more conservative or orthodox views.
