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 The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established i ...

'' 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 Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

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 The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and

violoncello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D ...

. He taught himself Latin and Greek so thoroughly that he was able to enter

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

as a sophomore in 1872. At Harvard, he studied philosophy, the classics, and music. He graduated in 1876. He attended the

Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...

in 1876, of which he wrote accounts for newspapers and magazines. The Harris

fellowship A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

from Harvard being awarded to him, he spent three years (1878–1881) in the study of physiological psychology in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

, and

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. He became musical editor of the ''

'' 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 The National Conservatory of Music of America was an institution for higher education in music founded in 1885 in New York City by Jeannette Meyers Thurber. The conservatory was officially declared defunct by the state of New York in 1952, altho ...

for 30 years.

Publications

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

and his Works'' (1893) * ''

Paderewski Ignacy Jan Paderewski (; – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composer who became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation's Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versail ...

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

'' (1899) * ''

Anton Seidl Anton Seidl (7 May 185028 March 1898) was a famous Hungarian Wagner conductor, best known for his association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and the New York Philharmonic. Biography He was born in Pest, Austria-Hungary, where he ...

'' (1899) * ''Songs and Song Writers'' (1900, 1921) * ''

Edvard Grieg Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the foremost Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of ...

'' (1905) * '' Grieg and his Music'' (1909) * ''Success in Music and How it is Won'' (1909) * ''

Massenet Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are ''Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther'' ...

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 Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...

: 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

* * * * * *

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