I found these quotes amusing from Frank Muir's book, where he's discussing criticism of music in the 19th century:
"I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard!" Tchaikovsky, Diary 9/10/1886
"It is one's duty to hate with all possible fervor the empty and ugly in art; and I hate Saint-Saens the composer with a hate that is perfect" Saturday Review 12/12/1896
"Berlioz, musically speaking, is a lunatic; a classical composer only in Paris, the great city of quacks. His music is simply and undisguisedly nonsense" Dramatic & Musical Review 7/1/1843
(I guess they didn't like them?)
