Geoffrey Norris

English musicologist and music critic (born 1947)

University of Durham
Russian State Institute of Performing Arts

Occupations

Musicologist
music critic

Notable credit

The Daily Telegraph

Geoffrey Norris (born 1947) is an English musicologist and music critic. His scholarship focuses on Russian composers; in particularly, Norris is a leading scholar on the life and music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, about whom he has written in numerous articles and a 1976 book-length study. He was chief classical music critic of The Daily Telegraph from 1995 to 2009.

Life and career

Geoffrey Norris was born in London, England in 1947.^[1] An enthusiast of Russian culture since his youth, Norris attended the University of Durham and where his undergraduate dissertation concerned The Five, a leading group of 19th-century Russian composers.^[2] He continued his studies of Russian music at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts.^[2] From 1995 to 2009, he was chief classical music critic of The Daily Telegraph.^[1] Norris has been a lecturer at the Royal Northern College of Music and numerous other universities, as well as a jury member for many piano competitions.^[2] Norris currently teaches at the Rachmaninoff Music Academy, London and the Gnesin Music Academy, Moscow.^[3]

Norris' scholarship focuses on Russian composers, and in particular, Sergei Rachmaninoff.^[2] He has written numerous articles,^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7] and a book length study on Rachmaninoff,^[8] whose works he catalogued in a 1982 publication with Robert Threlfall.^[9]

Selected writings

Books

Norris, Geoffrey (1976). Rakhmaninov. The Master Musicians Series. London: J.M. Dent. ISBN 978-0-460-03145-5.
——; Threlfall, Robert (1982). A Catalogue of the Compositions of S. Rachmaninoff. London: Scolar Press. ISBN 978-0-85967-617-5.

Articles

Norris, Geoffrey (1973). "Rachmaninoff's Second Thoughts". The Musical Times. 114 (1562): 364–368. doi:10.2307/955179. JSTOR 955179.
—— (July 1973). "Rakhmaninov's Student Opera". The Musical Quarterly. 59 (3): 441–448. doi:10.1093/mq/LIX.3.441. JSTOR 41788.
—— (October 1983). "Rakhmaninov's Apprenticeship". The Musical Times. 124 (1688): 602–603+605. doi:10.2307/961696. JSTOR 961696.
—— (2001). "Rachmaninoff [Rakhmaninov, Rachmaninov], Serge". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.50146. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)

References

^ ^a ^b Kennedy, Michal; Kennedy, Joyce Bourne, eds. (2013) [2007]. "Geoffrey Norris". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-920383-3. Retrieved 7 September 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Meet The Lecturers: Geoffrey Norris". Miami International Piano Festival. Retrieved 6 September 2022. Original from MiamiPianoFest (Archived)
^ "Professor Geoffrey Norris". Martin Randall Travel. Archived from the original on 7 September 2022. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
^ Norris 1973a.
^ Norris 1973b.
^ Norris 1983.
^ Norris 2001.
^ Norris 1976.
^ Norris & Threlfall 1982.

External links

Library resources

By Geoffrey Norris

Resources in your library
Resources in other libraries

Articles by Geoffrey Norris in The Daily Telegraph

Chief classical music critics

The Boston Globe

Michael Steinberg (1964–1976)
Richard Dyer (1976–2006)
Jeremy Eichler (since 2006)

The Daily Telegraph

Campbell Clarke (1855?–1870)
Joseph Bennett (1870–1906)
Robin Legge (1906–1931)
Herbert Hughes (1911–1932)
Richard Capell (1933–1954)
Martin Cooper (1954–1976)
Peter Stadlen (1976–1985)
Michael Kennedy (1986–2005)
Geoffrey Norris (1995–2009)
Ivan Hewett (since 2009)

The Guardian

George Fremantle (1867–1895)
Arthur Johnstone (1896–1904)
Ernest Newman (1905–1906)
Samuel Langford (1906–1927)
Neville Cardus (1927–1940)
Edward Greenfield (1977–1993)
Tom Service (1999–2003)
Andrew Clements (since 2003?)

Los Angeles Times

Isabel Morse Jones (1925–1947)
Albert Goldberg (1947–1965)
Martin Bernheimer (1965–1996)
Mark Swed (since 1996)

San Francisco Chronicle

Alfred Frankenstein (1934–1964)
Robert Commanday (1964–1993)
Joshua Kosman (since 1993)

The New Yorker

Robert A. Simon (1925–1948)
Winthrop Sargeant (1949–1972)
Andrew Porter (1972–1992)
Paul Griffiths (1992–1996)
Alex Ross (1996–present)

The New York Times

William James Henderson (1887–1902)
Richard Aldrich (1902–1923)
Olin Downes (1924–1955)
Howard Taubman (1955–1960)
Harold C. Schonberg (1960–1980)
Donal Henahan (1980–1991)
Edward Rothstein (1991–1995)
Bernard Holland (1995–2000)
Anthony Tommasini (2000–2021)
Zachary Woolfe (since 2022)

The Observer

Ernest Newman (1919)
Percy Scholes (1920–1925)
A. H. Fox Strangways (1925–1939)
William Glock (1939–1945)
Eric Blom (1949–1953)
Peter Heyworth (1955–1987)
Nicholas Kenyon (1986–1992)
Andrew Porter (1992–1996)
Anthony Holden (2000–2008)
Fiona Maddocks (since 2008)

The Times

James William Davison (1846–1879)
Francis Hueffer (1879–1889)
J A Fuller Maitland (1889–1911)
H. C. Colles (1911–1943)
A. H. Fox Strangways
Frank Howes (1943–1960)
William Mann (1960–1982)
Paul Griffiths (1982–1992)
Richard Morrison (since 1992)

The Washington Post

Paul Hume (1946–1982.)
Joseph McLellan (mid-1970s–1995)
Tim Page (1995–1999, 2001–2008)
Philip Kennicott (1999–2001)
Anne Midgette (2008–2019)
Michael Andor Brodeur (since 2020)

Others

Chicago Tribune
- George Putnam Upton (1861–1881)
- Frederick Grant Gleason (1884–1889)
Daily News
- George Hogarth (1846–1866)
Evening News
- Mosco Carner (1957–1961)
Evening Standard
- Percy Scholes (1913–1920)
- Barry Millington (2000s)
Financial Times
- Andrew Porter (1953–1972)
- Ronald Crichton (1972–1978)
Frankfurter Zeitung
- Paul Bekker
The Independent
- Bayan Northcott (1986–2009)
- Edward Seckerson (c. 2009–2012)
New York Daily News
- William Zakariasen (1976–1993)
New York Post
- Henry T Finck (1881–1924)
- Olga Samaroff (1926–1928)
San Francisco Examiner
- Michael Walsh (1977–1981)
Saturday Review
- William Barclay Squire (1888–1894)
The Scotsman
- Mary Miller (1992–1998)
Sunday Express
- Ralph Hill (1940s)
The Sunday Telegraph
- John Warrack (1961–1972)
- Michael Kennedy (1989–2005)
The Sydney Morning Herald
- Roger Covell (1960 – late 1990s)

Position abolished

Birmingham Post	Stephen Stratton (1877–1906) Ernest Newman (1906–1919) Eric Blom (1931–1946)

Daily Express	Francis Toye (1922–1925) Arthur Jacobs (1947–1952) Noël Goodwin (1965–1978)

Daily Mail	Richard Capell (1911–1933) Edwin Evans (1933–1945) Ralph Hill (1945–1948)

New Statesman	W. J. Turner (1915–1940) Desmond Shawe-Taylor (1945–1958) David Drew (1959–1967)

The Sunday Times	Joseph Bennett (1865–1870) Hermann Klein (1881–1901) Ernest Newman (1920–1959) Desmond Shawe-Taylor (1958–1983) David Cairns (1983–1992)

Discontinued

The Morning Chronicle	William Ayrton (1816–1826) George Hogarth (1834–1844) Charles Lewis Gruneisen (1845–1853)

The Morning Post	Howard Glover (1849–1865) Henry Sutherland Edwards Arthur Hervey (1892–1908) Francis Toye (1925–1937)

Neue Freie Presse	Eduard Hanslick (1864–1904) Julius Korngold (1904–1934)

New York Herald Tribune	Henry E Krehbiel (c. 1880–1923) Lawrence Gilman (1923-late 1930s) Virgil Thomson (1940–1954) Paul Lang (1954–1963) Alan Rich (1963–1968)