Henry Theophilus Finck (22 September 1854 – 1 October 1926) was an American

music critic ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...

and author. Among "the most prolific and influential critics of his day", he was chief classical music critic of both the '' New York Evening Post'' and ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

'' from 1881 to 1924. He championed

Romantic music Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western Classical music associated with the period of the 19th century commonly referred to as the Romantic era (or Romantic period). It is closely related to the broader concept of Romanticism—the ...

, promoting composers such as Liszt,

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

, Grieg and MacDowell. Along with his contemporaries Richard Aldrich, W.J. Henderson,

James Huneker James Gibbons Huneker (January 31, 1857 – February 9, 1921) was an American art, book, music, and theater critic. A colorful individual and an ambitious writer, he was "an American with a great mission," in the words of his friend, the critic Be ...

and

Henry Edward Krehbiel Henry Edward Krehbiel (10 March 1854 – 20 March 1923) was an American music critic and musicologist who was the chief music critic of '' The New York Tribune'' for more than forty years. Along with his contemporaries Richard Aldrich, Henry T ...

, Finck is considered part of the 'Old Guard', a group of leading New York-based music critics who first established a uniquely American school of criticism.

Biography

Finck was born at

Bethel, Missouri Bethel is a village in Shelby County, Missouri, United States. The population was 135 at the 2020 census. History Bethel was founded as a Bible utopian colony in 1844 by Dr William Keil (1811–1877), a Prussian-born preacher. He and his follow ...

, and raised in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, where he was taught piano and Cello, violoncello. He taught himself Latin and Greek so thoroughly that he was able to enter Harvard University, Harvard as a sophomore in 1872. At Harvard, he studied philosophy, the classics, and music. He graduated in 1876. He attended the Bayreuth Festival in 1876, of which he wrote accounts for newspapers and magazines. The Harris scholarship, fellowship from Harvard being awarded to him, he spent three years (1878–1881) in the study of physiological psychology in Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, and University of Vienna, Vienna. He became musical editor of the '' New York Evening Post'' in 1881 and was on the editorial staff of the associated journal, ''

''. He was connected with them for forty years. While at the ''Post'', he also served as the epicurean editor and reviewed all the new garden books. He taught music history at the National Conservatory of Music of America for 30 years.

Publications

* ''The Gastronomic Value of Odours'' (1886) * ''Romantic Love and Personal Beauty'' (New York, 1887) * ''Frédéric Chopin, Chopin and Other Musical Essays'' (1889) * ''Pacific Coast Scenic Tour'' (1890) * ''Spain and Morocco'' (1891) * ''

and his Works'' (1893) * ''Paderewski and his Art'' (1895) * ''Lotus Time in Japan'' (1895) * ''Primitive Love and Love Stories'' (1899) * ''Pictorial

'' (1899) * ''Anton Seidl'' (1899) * ''Songs and Song Writers'' (1900, 1921) * ''Edvard Grieg'' (1905) * '' Grieg and his Music'' (1909) * ''Success in Music and How it is Won'' (1909) * ''Massenet and his Opera'' (1910) * ''Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living'' (1913) * ''Thirty Years of the National Conservatory of Music of America'' (1916) * ''Richard Strauss: the Man and his Works'' (1917) * ''Gardening With Brains: Fifty Years' Experience of a Horticultural Epicure'' (1922) * ''Musical Laughs: Jokes, Tittle-tattle and Anecdotes Mostly Humorous About Musical Celebrities Gathered during his Forty-Three Years as Critic of the New York Evening Post'' (1924) * ''My Adventures in the Golden Age of Music'' (1926)

References

Sources

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External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Finck, Henry Theophilus 1854 births 1926 deaths Harvard College alumni American essayists American memoirists American music critics American music historians American male non-fiction writers American male journalists American male essayists Wagner scholars Chopin scholars 19th-century musicologists Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters