Scan 346
The American history and encyclopedia of music, 1908
6 lines. Read by computer on 11 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1other compositions are a cantata for chorus, solo and orchestra; a string quartet, several compositions for violin and piano; piano pieces and songs.
3American musical criticism has had an interesting history. The first so-called musical journals were mere literary efforts, full of flowery language. They contained much talk of Handel and Haydn, although at that time the people in America had only a very meager knowledge of these two great composers. The daily newspapers had no department of musical criticism. The pioneer musical critic of this country was John S. Dwight. He gave up the church to devote himself to literature, his musical writings gaining immediate attention. He was identified with the Brook Farm colony, where he taught German and the classics. At the conclusion of this venture he founded Dwight's Journal of Music, which proved an eminently successful publication, and of which he was editor-in-chief for fifteen years. His paper is the best American musical history of his time, and his writing in other lines is abundant. Among the contributors to the Journal were A. W. Thayer, Otto Dresel, Leonhard and Mathews.
5Alexander Wheelock Thayer, another American critic, while serving as librarian at Harvard, conceived the idea of writing a biography of Beethoven. For many years all his endeavors were toward that end, and he was successful in achieving the finest and most authentic of the reviews of the great musician's life. In 1865 he was appointed consul at Trieste by President Lincoln, and in this capacity he served until 1882. During the first years of his consulate he published the first volume of the Beethoven biography. The second appeared in 1872, and the third in 1879. It is indeed pathetic that after these years of indefatigable endeavor Mr. Thayer was unable, on account of poor health, to finish the biography, this work being done by Dr. Herman Rieters, who had put the other volumes into German, in which tongue the biography must be read, as the English manuscript has never been revised.
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