William James Henderson (December 4, 1855 – June 5, 1937) was an American musical critic and scholar.
Biography
He was born on December 4, 1855, in Newark, New Jersey.
He graduated from Princeton in 1876 and immediately began work as a journalist, later as a reporter, then as the musical critic of The New York Times, and in 1902 of The New York Sun. He wrote perceptive press reviews of the performances of the Metropolitan Opera's star singers which remain valuable for today's scholars. Henderson's perspicacity as a musical reviewer and evaluator was recognised when he was appointed lecturer on musical history in the New York College of Music. He was also elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1914.
Three days after the death of his longtime friend and fellow newspaper music critic, Richard Aldrich, he committed suicide with a .38-calibre revolver in his West-Side Manhattan hotel room. His New York Times obituary called him "for fifty years one of America's best known music critics."
Publications
- Sea Yarns for Boys
- Afloat with the Flag
- The Last Cruise of the Mohawk
- Preludes and Studies (1891)
- The Story of Music (1889; 12 enlarged ed., 1912)
- Elements of Navigation (1895)
- What is Good Music? (1898)
- How Music Developed (1899)
- The Orchestra and Orchestral Music (1902)
- Richard Wagner, His Life and His Dramas (1901)
- Modern musical Drift (1904)
- The Art of the singers (1906)
- Some Forerunners of Italian Opera (1911)
- The Soul of a Tenor (1912) a novel
- Early History of Singing (1921)
References
- (6 June 1937). W.J. Henderson, 81, Killed by Bullet, The New York Times, p. 1, 14 (paywall)
- Baker, Theodore and Remy, Alfred, Ed. "Henderson, William James", Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, third edition, New York, 1919.
- Slonimsky, Nicolas, Ed. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, sixth edition, New York, 1978.
- "Music: Silenced Oracles", Time, June 14, 1937.
External links
- Works by William James Henderson at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about William James Henderson at the Internet Archive
- Works by William James Henderson at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- 19th-century American novelists
- 20th-century American novelists
- American male novelists
- American male journalists
- The New York Times journalists
- New York College of Music faculty
- Opera critics
- Princeton University alumni
- Writers from Newark, New Jersey
- 1855 births
- 1937 suicides
- 1937 deaths
- American opera librettists
- Suicides by firearm in New York City
- 19th-century American male writers
- 20th-century American male writers
- Novelists from New Jersey
- Novelists from New York (state)
- 20th-century American non-fiction writers
- American music critics