William Somervell Mann (14 February 19245 September 1989) was an English music critic. Born in India, he was educated at

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, studying music with several prominent composers, before taking up a career as a critic. For most of his career he was on the staff of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' in London, where his radical views were in contrast with the paper's traditional outlook. He published many books and articles in musical journals. After leaving ''The Times'' Mann was director of the Bath Festival for a year.

Life and career

Mann was born in

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, India,Sadie, Stanley
"Mann, William S."
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford Music Online, accessed 2 March 2012 the son of Gerald and Joyce Mann."Mann, William Somervell"
''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 2 March 2012 He was educated at the

Dragon School ("Reach for the Sun") , established = 1877 , closed = , type = Preparatory day and boarding school and Pre-Prep school , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Emma Goldsm ...

and

,"William Mann – Obituary"
''The Times'', 6 September 1989 after which he took lessons in London, studying the piano with

Ilona Kabos Ilona Kabos (7 December 189327 May 1973) was a Hungarian-British pianist and teacher. Biography Kabos was born in Budapest in 1893 (some sources give her year of birth as 1894, 1898 or 1902). She studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music unde ...

and composition with

Mátyás Seiber Mátyás György Seiber (; 4 May 190524 September 1960) was a Hungarian-born British composer who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1935 onwards. His work linked many diverse musical influences, from the Hungarian tradition of Bartó ...

. He was at

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

from 1946 to 1948, studying with the composers

Patrick Hadley Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley (5 March 1899 – 17 December 1973) was a British composer. Biography Patrick Sheldon Hadley was born on 5 March 1899 in Cambridge. His father, William Sheldon Hadley, was at that time a fellow of Pembroke Co ...

and

Robin Orr Robert Kemsley (Robin) Orr (2 June 1909 – 9 April 2006) was a Scottish organist and composer. Life Born in Brechin, and educated at Loretto School, he studied the organ at the Royal College of Music in London under Walter Galpin Alcock, and pi ...

and the organist Hubert Middleton. On leaving Cambridge in 1948 Mann joined ''

'' in London. In the same year he married Erika Charlotte Emilie Sohler, with whom he had four daughters. He remained at ''The Times'' for 34 years, first as assistant music critic (1948–60) and then as chief music critic (1960–82). Although the paper in the post-war decades was generally conservative and traditional, Mann was, as a colleague described him, "markedly progressive, even iconoclastic, in outlook." In 1958 Mann contributed the libretto to

Franz Reizenstein Franz Theodor Reizenstein (7 June 191115 October 1968) was a German-born British composer and concert pianist. He left Germany for sanctuary in Britain in 1934 and went on to have his teaching and performing career there. As a composer, he succ ...

's ''Let's Fake an Opera'', produced for the 1958

Hoffnung Music Festival The Hoffnung Music Festivals were a series of three humorous classical music festivals held in Royal Festival Hall, London in 1956, 1958 and 1961 (and a reprise in 1988). They were created by cartoonist and amateur tuba player Gerard Hoffnung. ...

. It consisted of "ridiculously juxtaposed excerpts from more than forty operas, which delighted both Reizenstein and the audience".Hoffnung, A. ''Gerard Hoffnung'' (Garden Press, 1988), p 156
/ref> Mann was one of the first music critics to see serious artistic value in

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

. He achieved some notoriety for his assertion that the

Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...

were "the greatest songwriters since

Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

". Most unusually for a serious music critic, he appeared as a panellist on the television pop music programme "

Juke Box Jury ''Juke Box Jury'' was a music panel show which ran on BBC Television between 1 June 1959 and 27 December 1967. The programme was based on the American show '' Jukebox Jury'', itself an offshoot of a long-running radio series. The American serie ...

". As a broadcaster, however, he was better known as a regular contributor to the

BBC Third Programme The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and quickly became one of the leading cultural and intellectual f ...

(later

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

). He contributed reviews to ''

The Gramophone ''Gramophone'' is a magazine published monthly in London, devoted to classical music, particularly to reviews of recordings. It was founded in 1923 by the Scottish author Compton Mackenzie who continued to edit the magazine until 1961. It was a ...

'' for many years. In 1985 Mann was director of the Bath Festival in succession to Sir William Glock. Mann died in Bath at the age of 65.

Publications

* Hermann Scherchen: ''The Nature of Music'' (Mann's translation of ''Vom Wesen der Musik''), 1950 *''Introduction to the Music of J. S. Bach'', 1950 *''Benjamin Britten'' (contributor to symposium), 1952 *''The Concerto'' (contributor), 1952 *''

The Record Guide ''The Record Guide'' was an English reference work that listed, described, and evaluated gramophone recordings of classical music in the 1950s. It was a precursor to modern guides such as '' The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music''. Publ ...

'' (contributor), 1955 *''Chamber Music,'' 1957 *''The Analytical Concert Guide'' (editor), 1957 *''Music and Western Man'' (contributor), 1958 *''Let's Fake an Opera'' (with

), 1958 *''Richard Strauss's Operas,'' 1964 *''Wagner's The Ring' Introduction and Translation,'' 1964 *''Michael Tippett'' (contributor), 1965 *''Wagner's Tristan, Introduction and Translation,'' 1968 *''The Operas of Mozart,'' 1977 *''Opera on Record'' (contributor), vol. 1 1979,'' vol. 2 1983,'' vol. 3 1984 *''Music in Time,'' 1982 *''The Book of the Violin'' (contributor), 1984 Articles: * "''Feuersnot'': a more positive view of Strauss", ''The Listener'', 10 September 1964, p. 406

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mann, William 1924 births 1989 deaths Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge English musicologists English music critics The Times people 20th-century British musicologists Presidents of the Critics' Circle British people in colonial India