1-20 of 54 Results  for:

  • Critic or Journalist x
Clear all

Article

Adamič, Emil  

Jernej Weiss

(b Dobrova, nr Ljubljana, Slovenia; Dec 25, 1877; d Ljubljana, Dec 6, 1936). Slovenian music educator, conductor, and writer on music. Uncle of composer Bojan Adamič. He received his first musical education at the Ljubljana Glasbena Matica society music school, from 1911 to 1912 he studied at the Conservatory in Trieste, and in 1912 he passed the national examination at the Ljubljana Conservatory. During World War I he joined the Austrian Army, and from 1915 to 1920 was a prisoner of war at Tashkent. In 1920 he returned to Ljubljana, where he taught music at the teacher’s college and at the classical gymnasium until his retirement in 1932. From 1925 to 1928 he was conductor of the Orchestral Society at the Glasbena Matica music society, and from January 1928 to December 1929 editor of the Nova muzika (‘New Music’) magazine. He was also active as a music critic and reviewer for the magazines ...

Article

Alessandrescu, Alfred  

Viorel Cosma

revised by Ruxandra Arzoiu

(b Bucharest, 2/Aug 14, 1893; d Bucharest, Feb 18, 1959). Romanian composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, music critic, and director of music programmes. A leading figure of the first half of the 20th century, he laid the foundation of the Romanian school in music, concert life, and musical journalism. He studied with A. Castaldi, D. Dinicu, D.G. Kiriac, and E. Saegiu at the Bucharest Conservatory (1903–11), completing his education with two periods of study in Paris (1913–14, 1923–4), where he studied with d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum and with Paul Vidal at the Conservatoire. A remarkable accompanist, he worked with Enescu, Thibaud, Mainardi, Moodie, and others during the period 1919–45. As a conductor he always achieved a soberly balanced performance; he conducted more than 1500 performances at the Romanian Opera in Bucharest (1921–59), where he specialized in the French repertory (Bizet, Massenet, and Gounod). In his capacities as conductor of the Romanian Philharmonic Society, and as conductor and artistic manager of the Romanian RSO, he did much to encourage Romanian composers. He was also active as a music critic for Romanian and French reviews. Much of his compositional work was done during his youth, including ...

Article

Atterberg, Kurt  

Hans Åstrand and Bo Wallner

(Magnus)

(b Göteborg, Dec 12, 1887; d Stockholm, Feb 15, 1974). Swedish composer, administrator, conductor and critic. He studied the cello at school in Göteborg and then entered the Stockholm College of Technology. Having passed the examination in civil engineering in 1911, he spent his working life (1912–68) in the patent office. He was largely self-taught although he studied composition and instrumentation with Hallén at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music (1910–11), and partly used the state composer’s scholarships he received between 1911 and 1915 to study in Germany (1911 and 1913). He made his début as a conductor at Göteborg in 1912, when the programme included his First Symphony; thereafter (particularly during the 1920s) he often conducted his own music and that of contemporaries, both at home and abroad (where he promoted Swedish music). From 1916 to 1922 he was kapellmästare at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm; he also worked enthusiastically as co-founder and president (...

Article

Barbieri, Francisco Asenjo  

John Edwin Henken

(b Madrid, Aug 3, 1823; d Madrid, Feb 17, 1894). Spanish composer, musicologist, conductor and critic. Barbieri’s father died in 1823 and the composer used his matronym throughout his life although, in the heated polemic wars of the period, that was sometimes held against him as an Italianate pretence.

Barbieri received his early music training from his maternal grandfather and entered the fledgling Royal Conservatory in 1837, studying the clarinet with Ramón Broca, the piano with Albéniz y Basanta, singing with Saldoni and composition with Carnicer. In 1841 his family moved to Lucena, but Barbieri remained in Madrid, eking out a living as a clarinettist, pianist, teacher and copyist. His earliest compositions were songs and dances, and a paso doble for a militia band in which he played. He also sang baritone roles in Italian operas at the Conservatory and the Teatro del Circo. He wrote the libretto for a one-act zarzuela but did not complete the music in time for its scheduled première in ...

Article

Bradshaw, Sonny  

Val Wilmer

[Cecil Valentine ]

(b Kingston, Jamaica, March 28, 1926; d Romford, England, Oct 10, 2009). Jamaican trumpeter, flugelhorn player, conductor, arranger, bandleader, journalist, and broadcaster. Self-taught on clarinet, he changed to trumpet to play with the big bands of the drummer Redver Cooke and the saxophonist Eric Deans, then formed the Beboppers with Ernest Ranglin and Dizzy Reece. He performed annually with the Jamaica All-Stars, and in 1950 he formed a septet which included Joe Harriott. From 1954 he promoted concerts and festivals, organizing the annual Big Band, which featured the island’s leading talents, notably Wilton “Bogey” Gaynair, Don Drummond, and the pianist (later politician) Seymour “Foggy” Mullings. Ranglin, Roland Alphonso, and the trombonist Emanuel “Rico” Rodriguez joined this ensemble to accompany such visiting artists as Sarah Vaughan, Donald Byrd, and Jimmy Owens. Bradshaw, who played in a raw, direct style influenced by Dizzy Gillespie, was a tireless promoter of Jamaican music. For 25 years he served as president of the Jamaican Federation of Musicians, and he arranged the island’s national anthem. Although he recorded extensively and toured throughout the Americas playing reggae, jazz was his preferred mode of expression. Among the guests who appeared with his poll-winning small group are Roy Haynes, Reece, Coleridge Goode, and Byard Lancaster. In the 1990s he travelled to England annually, playing in Birmingham with Andy Hamilton’s band....

Article

Broman, Sten  

Hans Åstrand

(b Uppsala, March 25, 1902; d Lund, Oct 29, 1983). Swedish composer, conductor, violist and critic. After private studies in Lund he was accepted by Henri Marteau for the latter’s violin masterclass at the German Conservatory in Prague, where he also studied composition with Finke and conducting with Zemlinsky for two years. He then studied musicology with Norlind in Stockholm, with Peter Wagner in Fribourg, Switzerland, and with Sachs in Berlin, taking a licentiate in philosophy at Lund in 1926. He was chief critic of the Sydsvenska dagbladet of Malmö (1930–66, having contributed from Lund from 1923) and co-founder of the Swedish section of the ISCM, serving as its president (1930–62) and as second chairman of the ISCM presidium (1956–9); he was appointed to honorary membership of the ISCM in 1963. He was founder-violist of the Skånekvartetten (1937–48) and the Pianokvartetten av ...

Article

Carlberg, Gotthold  

Joseph A. Bomberger

(b Berlin, ?June 12, 1838; d New York, April 28, 1881). Prussian critic, editor, conductor, and writer, active in the USA. Carlberg started piano under the instruction of organist Louis Thiele at the age of four. He later studied violin with Gruenwald and harmony with A.B. Marx. Though his father wanted him to pursue medicine, Carlberg decided to enter a career in music. He traveled to New York in 1857, where he continued his musical studies with Carl Anschütz and served as music editor of the New York Staats-Zeitung from 1858 to 1860. Because he was still a Prussian citizen, Carlberg was conscripted in 1861 and served in the Prussian military for eight months. He also became editor of the Neue Berliner Musikzeitung. During the next decade he gave concerts in London, Vienna, Paris, Warsaw, and Berlin. While conducting in Russia in 1871, Carlberg was persuaded by Prince George Galitzin to return to America to conduct some Russian concerts. Though the concerts were a failure, he was engaged as music director for the Pauline Lucca opera season, also writing reviews for the ...

Article

Covell, Roger David  

David Tunley

(b Sydney, Feb 1, 1931). Australian musicologist, music critic and conductor. He graduated from the University of Queensland with the BA in 1964 and founded the department of music at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, in 1966 (the university first offered music as an interdisciplinary study before it established an institute of practical studies and music education). He took the doctorate at New South Wales in 1976 and was appointed Chair in 1984. His work covers a broad spectrum and includes writings on 17th-century Italian and 19th-century German and French opera, but his major contribution has been in Australian music. His Australia's Music: Themes of a New Society (1967) is regarded as the classic study on this topic, and his insights into the Australian repertory (and beyond) have been sharpened through his work as chief music critic at the Sydney Morning Herald (from 1960...

Article

Craft, Robert  

Patrick J. Smith

revised by Maureen Buja

(b Kingston, NY, 20 Oct 1923). American conductor and writer on music.

He graduated from the Juilliard School (BA 1946), and conducted the Chamber Art Society in New York (1947–50). From 1950 to 1968 he was a conductor of the Evenings-on-the-Roof and the Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles and also appeared at the Ojai Festival. His main repertory interests were older music (e.g., Monteverdi, Schütz, Bach, and Haydn) and contemporary music (e.g., the Second Viennese School, Stockhausen, Varèse, and Boulez). His interest in the music of Gesualdo led to recordings (1959, 1962) that brought that composer to popular attention. He also directed the first recordings of the complete works of Webern (1957) and most of Schoenberg's music, for CBS (1963). He conducted the first performance of Varèse's Nocturnal and, with the Santa Fe Opera, the American premieres of Berg's ...

Article

Davico, Vincenzo  

John C.G. Waterhouse

(b Monaco, Jan 14, 1889; d Rome, Dec 8, 1969). Italian composer, conductor and critic. He studied at Turin and with Reger at the Leipzig Conservatory, gaining a diploma there in 1911. In his early 20s he made his début as a conductor in Rome. From 1918 until 1940 he was resident mainly in Paris: Debussian tendencies, already present in his previous works, were reinforced, though he did much to promote modern Italian music. He subsequently returned to Rome, where he worked for Italian radio. Davico’s very uneven output includes several large-scale compositions, some of which achieved success. Yet even in the colourful La tentation de St Antoine and the Requiem per la morte di un povero, which are notable for many refinements and personal touches in detail, there is a certain self-consciousness in overall conception. For Davico was by nature a miniaturist, at his best in his songs. Often conceived on a tiny scale, these have aptly been compared to the Japanese ...

Article

Dorn, Heinrich Ludwig Egmont  

Adelyn Peck Leverett

revised by Christopher Fifield

(b Königsberg [now Kaliningrad], Nov 14, 1804; d Berlin, Jan 10, 1892). German conductor, composer and journalist. He studied the piano, singing and composition in Königsberg, made several long journeys throughout Germany, during which he met Weber in Dresden, and completed his studies with Ludwig Berger, Bernhard Klein and Zelter in Berlin, where his first opera, Rolands Knappen, was produced successfully in 1826. At the same time he became a co-editor of the Berliner allgemeine Muzikzeitung, for which he wrote a spirited defence of the beleaguered Gaspare Spontini. Over the next two decades he built a solid reputation as a conductor of opera, holding theatre posts at Königsberg (1828), Leipzig (1829–32), where he taught counterpoint to the young Schumann, Hamburg (1832), Riga (1834–43), and Cologne (1844–8). He organized the first music festival of the Russian Baltic provinces in Riga (...

Article

Engel, (A.) Lehman  

Scott Warfield

(b Jackson, MS, Sept 14, 1910; d New York, NY, Aug 29, 1982). American conductor, composer, arranger, educator, and writer on music. After studying composition at the Cincinnati Conservatory, Engel moved to New York, where he had lessons in composition at the Juilliard School with rubin Goldmark and then privately with roger Sessions . During the late 1930s Engel provided incidental music for plays and dance groups and conducted his own Madrigal Singers under the auspices of the WPA. He conducted the premieres of Kurt Weill’s Johnny Johnson and Aaron Copland’s The Second Hurricane, and he also led the chorus in the audience at the improvised premiere of Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock.

Engel is best known for his work in commercial venues. He supplied vocal and choral arrangements and other forms of incidental music for theatrical and broadcast productions. As a conductor, his most successful shows on Broadway included Gian Carlo Menotti’s ...

Article

Fröhlich, (Franz) Joseph  

John Warrack

revised by James Deaville

(b Würzburg, May 28, 1780; d Würzburg, Jan 5, 1862). German teacher, musical organizer, critic, theorist, conductor and composer. He studied music at the student institute of the Juliusspital in Würzburg, and studied law and philosophy at the university there. In 1801 he began his career as a violinist in the prince-bishop’s court orchestra. He also founded the Akademische Bande, a student choral and orchestral group, which in 1804 became the Akademisches Musikinstitut and was made part of the university, thus becoming the basis of the first state music school in Germany. His teaching and organizational work was of the highest importance and encompassed several disciplines and activities. He became reader in aesthetics in 1812, reader in pedagogical studies in 1819 and professor in 1821. In 1820 a singing school was established as part of the institute. He also conducted important historical concerts for King Ludwig I in ...

Article

Fuchs, Carl  

Gaynor G. Jones

revised by Christopher Fifield

(Dorius Johannes)

(b Potsdam, Oct 22, 1838; d Danzig, Aug 27, 1922). German critic, pianist, conductor and composer. The son of an organist, he studied music from an early age. In 1859 he enrolled at the University of Berlin, studying theology and later philosophy; during this time he took piano lessons from Hans von Bülow. For a time he was torn between his interests in philosophy and music; having decided upon the latter he studied thoroughbass with Carl Friedrich Weitzmann and composition with Friedrich Kiel. For two and a half years he taught the piano privately in Berlin before accepting a position at Kullak’s Neue Akademie der Tonkunst in 1868. With the singer Clara Werner (whom he married in 1870) he gave concerts in Berlin, Pomerania and Silesia and became organist at the Nikolaikirche in Stralsund in 1869. In his dissertation Praeliminarien zu einer Kritik der Tonkunst (University of Greifswald, ...

Article

Galkin, Elliot W(ashington)  

Paula Morgan

(b Brooklyn, NY, Feb 22, 1921; d Baltimore, May 24, 1990). American music critic and conductor. He attended Brooklyn College (BA 1943), took conducting diplomas in Paris at the Conservatoire and the Ecole Normale de Musique (1946–9) and studied musicology at Cornell University (MA 1950), where he took the doctorate in 1960 with a dissertation on orchestral conducting which he later revised and published as A History of Orchestral Conducting in Theory and Practice (New York, 1988). As a Fulbright Fellow he attended the university and the music academy of Vienna and became apprentice conductor at the Staatsoper (1955–6). He then worked at Goucher College (from 1956; from 1964 as professor), and in 1957 was appointed to the staff of the Peabody Conservatory, where he was conductor from 1957, and chairman of the department of music history and literature from 1964...

Article

Gliński [Hercenstein], Mateusz  

Zygmunt M. Szweykowski

[Matteo]

(b Warsaw, April 6, 1892; d Welland, ON, Jan 3, 1976). Polish music journalist, conductor and composer. While a law student at Warsaw University, he studied music with Stanisław Barcewicz (violin), Roman Statkowski (composition) and Mieczysław Surzyński (theory) at the Institute of Music in Warsaw (1909–13). He continued his musical education under Max Reger (composition), Arthur Nikisch and Hans Sitt (conducting) at the Leipzig Conservatory, at the same time studying musicology at the university with Hugo Riemann and Arnold Schering (1913–14). He completed his study of conducting and composition with Nikolay Tcherepnin, Aleksandr Glazunov and Maximilian Steinberg at the Petrograd Conservatory (1914–15) and stayed in Russia (Petrograd, Kiev) as conductor and music critic until 1918, when he returned to Poland. He lived in Warsaw until 1939, dividing his time between his profession as a lawyer and his work as a music journalist and critic. In ...

Article

Goldberg, Albert  

Jacquelyn Sholes

(b Shenandoah, IA, June 2, 1898; d Memphis, TN, Feb 4, 1990). American music critic, conductor, and pianist. He studied at the University of Nebraska (1915–16), Chicago Music College (1920–22, subsequently incorporated into Roosevelt University), and the Gunn School in Chicago (MM 1923). He worked as a music critic for the Chicago Herald and Examiner between 1925 and 1936 and for the Chicago Tribune from 1943 to 1947. Between 1935 and 1943 he served as the Illinois state director of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Music Project and as a co-conductor of the Illinois SO. In 1947 he became the first full-time music critic for the Los Angeles Times, a position from which he officially retired in 1965. He subsequently contributed to the LA Times as a staff writer and, from 1966 until shortly before his death, as Critic Emeritus. Goldberg was known for his emphatic support of conductors Zubin Mehta and Georg Solti and also for his recollections of such figures as Percy Grainger, Josef Hofmann, Vladimir Horowitz, Lauritz Melchior, and Artur Rubinstein. Trained as a pianist, he was especially knowledgeable about pianists and piano repertory....

Article

Guerrini, Guido  

John C.G. Waterhouse

(b Faenza, Sept 12, 1890; d Rome, June 14, 1965). Italian composer, conductor and critic. He studied at the Bologna Liceo Musicale with Torchi and Busoni. After teaching in Bologna (1920–24) and Parma (1925–8), he became the director of the Florence Conservatory (1928–47), the Bologna Conservatory (1947–9) and the Conservatorio di S Cecilia (1950–60). His earlier music combines high seriousness, at times somewhat academic, with luxuriant chromatic harmony reminiscent of Bax or, more significantly, Alfano. The textures and orchestration sometimes suggest Strauss, as does Guerrini’s interest, around 1920, in the symphonic poem; and there are indications, too, of Ravel's influence. The most substantial and imaginative of his early works is his second published work in the genre, L’ultimo viaggio d’Odisseo, which shows his harmony and orchestration at their most evocative. Also notable, in this early period, are the chamber compositions: the Violin Sonata is typical, combining succulent chromaticism with reiterative thematic developments. In time Guerrini’s academicism grew more pronounced, while his tendency to romantic indulgence was tempered by a new, architectonic sobriety. His best work after ...

Article

Gunn, Glenn Dillard  

Severine Neff

(b Topeka, KS, Oct 2, 1874; d Washington, DC, Nov 22, 1963). American music critic, conductor, and pianist. In 1893 he entered the Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied piano with Carl Reinecke. From 1901 to 1905 he taught piano at the Chicago Musical College and studied theory privately with Ziehn. He gave a number of recitals in Chicago that included works by Debussy, Ravel, MacDowell, and Ferruccio Busoni; his playing was described in the Music News as that of a “thinker and experimenter.” From 1910 to 1915, as music critic of the Chicago Tribune, he reviewed works by such composers as De Lamarter, Freer, Clarence Loomis, and Adolph Weidig. Between 1914 and 1916 he taught Ernst Bacon, on whom he exerted a profound influence. He left the Tribune to form the American SO, and became its conductor; the orchestra’s inaugural program (14 November 1915) included works by De Lamarter, Loomis, MacDowell, and Cecil Burleigh. He founded the Glenn Dillard Gunn School of Music and Dramatic Art in ...

Article

Hallén, (Johannes) Andreas  

Axel Helmer

(b Göteborg, Dec 22, 1846; d Stockholm, March 11, 1925). Swedish conductor, composer, teacher and critic. Between 1866 and 1871 he studied in Leipzig with Reinecke, in Munich with Rheinberger and in Dresden with Rietz. He then returned to Göteborg, where he became conductor of the music society (1872–8); he later taught singing in Berlin (1879–83). Back in Sweden he was conductor of the Philharmonic Society in Stockholm (1885–95) and of the Royal Opera (1892–7), as well as founder and conductor of the South Swedish Philharmonic Society (1902–7). From 1909 to 1919 he taught composition at the Stockholm Conservatory.

Hallén’s compositions show an accomplished handling of formal elements and contain stylistic reminiscences of Swedish folk music and the works of other Swedish composers like Söderman. The salient feature of his style, however, and the one which strongly affected contemporary reaction, is its close, almost derivative relationship to German music. Wagner’s works and aesthetic ideas had a particularly strong and lasting influence on Hallén; his operas, although conceived with considerable dramatic skill, are largely dependent on Wagnerian models. As an enterprising and versatile conductor, he gave sympathetic performances of the Wagner operas and brought about performances of many choral masterpieces then almost unknown in Sweden, including the first Swedish performance of Bach's ...