Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Richard Freed, classical music critic, dies at 93
Richard Freed, classical music critic, dies at 93
Link to tweet
Obituaries
Richard Freed, classical music critic, dies at 93
Richard Freed, seen in 2019, was just as likely to address the complicated history of jazz in the Soviet Union as he was to write about the classical “hits.” (John W. Lambert)
By Tim Page
Yesterday at 11:00 p.m. EST
Richard Freed, a classical music critic and administrator renowned for the program notes he wrote for the National Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the leading ensembles of Baltimore, Houston and Philadelphia, died Jan. 1 at his home in Rockville, Md. He was 93. ... The cause was a heart attack, said his daughter, Erica Freed.
A courtly, soft-spoken man, Mr. Freed was widely regarded as a writer many other critics read to learn from. He was the executive director of the Music Critics Association (later the Music Critics Association of North America) from 1974 to 1990. He won a Grammy Award for best liner notes on a historical recording in 1995 for his work on “The Heifetz Collection,” a near-complete collection of the recordings of violinist Jascha Heifetz.
Leonard Slatkin, for whom Mr. Freed served as an adviser during his music directorships at the NSO and the St. Louis Symphony, wrote in an email tribute this week: “There simply was no better program annotator.”
{snip}
In 1989, the 225-member branch of the Music Critics Association issued a statement protesting the Helms amendment, a law proposed by conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) that would have prohibited federal support of any work of art that might be judged obscene or indecent. “The association has never taken a stand on anything of this sort before,” Mr. Freed said in a statement, noting that the group members thought it warranted in this instance. He dismissed the amendment as “a spectacle of politicians meddling in the arts.”
Richard Donald Freed was born in Chicago on Dec. 27, 1928, and grew up in Tulsa, where his Russian immigrant father owned a furniture store. His mother was a homemaker. As a young man, he recalled, he always kept by his bedside a copy of “The Victor Book of the Opera” — a lavishly illustrated book that combined instruction in the history of opera and an array of Victor (later RCA Victor) recordings that were for sale. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a degree in philosophy.
{snip}
Richard Freed, classical music critic, dies at 93
Richard Freed, seen in 2019, was just as likely to address the complicated history of jazz in the Soviet Union as he was to write about the classical “hits.” (John W. Lambert)
By Tim Page
Yesterday at 11:00 p.m. EST
Richard Freed, a classical music critic and administrator renowned for the program notes he wrote for the National Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the leading ensembles of Baltimore, Houston and Philadelphia, died Jan. 1 at his home in Rockville, Md. He was 93. ... The cause was a heart attack, said his daughter, Erica Freed.
A courtly, soft-spoken man, Mr. Freed was widely regarded as a writer many other critics read to learn from. He was the executive director of the Music Critics Association (later the Music Critics Association of North America) from 1974 to 1990. He won a Grammy Award for best liner notes on a historical recording in 1995 for his work on “The Heifetz Collection,” a near-complete collection of the recordings of violinist Jascha Heifetz.
Leonard Slatkin, for whom Mr. Freed served as an adviser during his music directorships at the NSO and the St. Louis Symphony, wrote in an email tribute this week: “There simply was no better program annotator.”
{snip}
In 1989, the 225-member branch of the Music Critics Association issued a statement protesting the Helms amendment, a law proposed by conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) that would have prohibited federal support of any work of art that might be judged obscene or indecent. “The association has never taken a stand on anything of this sort before,” Mr. Freed said in a statement, noting that the group members thought it warranted in this instance. He dismissed the amendment as “a spectacle of politicians meddling in the arts.”
Richard Donald Freed was born in Chicago on Dec. 27, 1928, and grew up in Tulsa, where his Russian immigrant father owned a furniture store. His mother was a homemaker. As a young man, he recalled, he always kept by his bedside a copy of “The Victor Book of the Opera” — a lavishly illustrated book that combined instruction in the history of opera and an array of Victor (later RCA Victor) recordings that were for sale. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a degree in philosophy.
{snip}
