Schonberg, Harold C(harles)
Schonberg, Harold C(harles)
Schonberg, Harold C(harles), eminent American music critic; b. N.Y., Nov. 29, 1915. He studied at Brooklyn Coll. (B.A., 1937) and at N.Y.U. (M.A., 1938). He served in the army (1942–46); then was on the staff of the NY. Sun (1946–50); he was appointed to the music staff of the N.Y. Times in 1950; was senior music critic from 1960 until 1980. In 1971 he was the first music critic to be honored with the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. In his concert reviews and feature articles, he reveals a profound knowledge of music and displays a fine journalistic flair without assuming a posture of snobbish aloofness or descending to colloquial vulgarity. His intellectual horizon is exceptionally wide; he is well-versed in art, and can draw and paint; he is a chess aficionado and covered knowledgeably the Spassky-Fischer match in Reykjavik in 1972 for the N.Y. Times . He publ. in N.Y.: Chamber and Solo Instrument Music (1955); The Collector’s Chopin and Schumann (1959); The Great Pianists (1963; second ed., rev., 1987); The Great Conductors (1967); Lives of the Great Composers (1970; second ed., 1981; third ed., 1997); Facing the Music (1981); The Glorious Ones: Classical Music’s Legendary Performers (1985); Horowitz: His Life and Music (1992).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire