Tapper, Thomas
Tapper, Thomas
Tapper, Thomas, American music educator; b. Canton, Mass., Jan. 28, 1864; d. White Plains, N.Y., Feb. 24, 1958. He studied in the U.S. and Europe. He ed. the Music Record and Review (1901-07) and the Musician (1905-07), then taught at N.Y.U. (1908-12). He was lecturer at the Inst. of Musical Art (1905-24), and also filled other editorial and educational positions. He publ. The Music Life (1891), The Education of the Music Teacher (1914), Essentials in Music History (1914; with Percy Goetschius), The Melodic Music Course (28 vols.; with F.H. Ripley), Harmonic Music Course (7 vols.), The Modern Graded Piano Course (19 vols.), Music Theory and Composition (6 vols.), and From Palestrina to Grieg (Boston, 1929; 2nd ed., 1946). His wife, Bertha Feiring Tapper (b. Christiania, Norway, Jan. 25, 1859; d. N.Y., Sept. 2, 1915), was a good pianist. She studied with Agathe Backer-Gröndahl in Norway and with Leschetizky in Vienna, then went to America in 1881 where she later taught piano at the New England Cons, in Boston (1889-97) and at the Inst. of Musical Art in N.Y. (1905-10). She ed. 2 vols, of Grieg’s piano works, and also publ, piano pieces and songs. She married Tapper on Sept. 22, 1895.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire