"Keep in mind also that an edited version of the review, from which all the positive comments were removed,"
This is patently untrue and was dealt with in the MT correspondence at the time; or are you able to provide us with the names of anybody who received those 'edited reviews'.
It would have been fully discussed had not the editor of MT exercised his prerogative and closed down the discussion with what he had earlier somewhat quaintly termed 'temporary censorship', thus protecting his reviewers from further damage.
Their behaviour on this and on the Irtrad forum (from which they had to resign) was outrageous and can be followed in full in the archives of both (can we ever forget the appeal for "a hunky collector wanted" on Mudcat, or the attacks on Tom Munnelly, John Moulden, Mary Humphreys and my wife, none of whom were involved, or even aware of the argument).
The Cronin review was on of at least four in MT which did considerable damage to traditional music and were completely unprecedented, in my experience.
Jim Carroll