Marsh, Robert C(harles)

Marsh, Robert C(harles), American music critic; b. Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 5, 1924. He took courses in journalism (B.S., 1945) and philosophy (A.M., 1946) at Northwestern Univ. In 1946–47 he was a Sage fellow at Cornell Univ., where he received training in theory from Robert Palmer. He pursued postgraduate studies at the Univ. of Chicago (1948), and then studied at Harvard Univ. (Ed.D., 1951), where he also attended Hindemith’s lectures (1949–50). After attending the Univ. of Oxford (1952–53), he studied musicology with Thurston Dart and theory of criticism with H.S. Middleton at the Univ. of Cambridge (1953–56). He taught social sciences at the Univ. of 111. (1947–49), was a lecturer in the humanities at Chicago City Junior Coll. (1950–51), and asst. prof. of education at the Univ. of Kans. (1951–52). After serving as visiting prof. of education at the State Univ. of N.Y. (1953–54), he taught the humanities at the Univ. of Chicago (1956–58). He was contributing ed. of High Fidelity magazine (1955–66; 1971–77). He served as music critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1956 to 1991. In addition to his music reviews and books, he contributed articles on music to various literary and philosophical publications. His books on music comprise Toscanini and the Art of Orchestral Performance (1956; 2^nded., rev., 1962 as Toscanini and the Art of Conducting), The Cleveland Orchestra (1967), Ravinia (1987), James Levine at Ravinia (1993), and Dialogues and Discoveries: James Levine, His Life and His Music (1998).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire