Life and Career As Music Critic
Born in New York City, Schonberg grew up there, graduated from Brooklyn College in 1937, and did graduate studies at New York University. In 1939 he became a record critic for American Music Lover magazine (later renamed the American Record Guide). The son of David and Mini Schonberg, he had a brother (Stanley) and sister (Edith).
Schonberg joined The New York Times in 1950. He rose to the post of senior music critic for the Times a decade later. In this capacity he published daily reviews and longer features on operas and classical music on Sundays. He also worked effectively behind the scenes to increase music coverage in the Times and develop its first-rate music staff. Upon his retirement as senior music critic in 1980 he became cultural correspondent for the Times.
Schonberg was an extremely influential music writer. Aside from his contributions to music journalism, he published 13 books, most of them on music, including The Great Pianists: From Mozart to the Present (1963, revised 1987) — pianists were a specialty of Schonberg — and The Lives of the Great Composers (1970; revised 1981, 1997) which traced the lives of major composers from Monteverdi through to modern times.
Read more about this topic: Harold C. Schonberg
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