Martin du Pré Cooper (17 January 1910 – 15 March 1986) was an English musicologist and author. Cooper was born in

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

and studied at

Hertford College Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main gate to the Bodleian Library. The colle ...

, Oxford, before a period of study in Vienna with Egon Wellesz. Fluent in half-a-dozen languages, he taught modern languages at Stowe College and

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

while simultaneously establishing himself as a music critic, first at the ''

London Mercury ''The London Mercury'' was the name of several periodicals published in London from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The earliest was a newspaper that appeared during the Exclusion Bill crisis; it lasted only 56 issues (1682). (Earlier periodical ...

'' (1935–9), then (interrupted by the war) the '' Daily Herald'' (1946–50) and ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'' (1947–54). In 1950 he joined ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' as assistant to Richard Capell, succeeding him as chief music critic four years later when Capell died. He remained at the ''Telegraph'' until his retirement in 1976 and was succeeded by Peter Stadlen. He was also editor of ''

The Musical Times ''The Musical Times'' was an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainzer's Musical Times and Singing Circular'', but in 1844 he sold it to Alfr ...

'' between 1953 and 1956. Cooper is best known for his book ''French Music'', first published in 1951. He was a lifelong enthusiast of

Gluck Christoph Willibald ( Ritter von) Gluck (; ; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire at ...

and a champion of the often vilified Meyerbeer,

Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...

and Massenet. He was less forgiving of what he saw as the romantic excesses of

Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...

Strauss Strauss, Strauß, or Straus is a common Germanic surname. Outside Germany and Austria ''Strauß'' is usually spelled ''Strauss'' (the letter " ß" is not used in the German-speaking part of Switzerland). In classical music, "Strauss" most com ...

and

Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...

.'Martin Cooper, music critic of distinction', in ''The Daily Telegraph'', 17 March 1986, p. 14 But his interests were wide-ranging, encompassing German and Russian music, as well as a broader, cosmopolitan perspective on philosophy, literature and cultural and political history than most of his English contemporaries. He married the artist Mary Stewart in 1940. There were four children, including the novelist Dominic Cooper and the pianist Imogen Cooper. Cooper was appointed CBE in 1972. In retirement he turned increasingly to translation, including the collected essays of

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montb ...

and a new translation of

Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular ...

's ''Queen of Spades''.Recorded as ''Pique Dame'', RCA Victor 60992 (1991)
/ref> He died in

Richmond upon Thames The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames () in south-west Greater London, London, England, forms part of Outer London and is the only London boroughs, London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller ...

Books

* ''Gluck'' (1935) * ''Georges Bizet'' (1938) * ''Opéra comique'' (1949) * ''Profils de musiciens anglais'' (1950) * ''French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Fauré'' (1951) * ''Russian Opera'' (1951) * ''Ideas and Music'' (1966) * ''Beethoven: the Last Decade, 1817–1827'' (1970, revised 1985) * ed.: ''The New Oxford History, Vol 10: The Modern Age, 1890–1960'' (1974) * (as translator): ''Orientations: Collected Writings of Pierre Boulez'' (1986) * ''Judgements of Value'' (1988) (selected writings, ed. Dominic Cooper)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Martin 1910 births 1986 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Opera critics English biographers English male non-fiction writers 20th-century English non-fiction writers 20th-century English male writers English music critics British classical music critics 20th-century English musicologists Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford Writers from Winchester Presidents of the Critics' Circle The Musical Times editors