“Martin Bernheimer, who combined an encyclopedic knowledge of music with a brilliant, exuberant and sometimes lacerating command of the English language, died Sept. 29 at his home in Manhattan. He was 83,” writes Tim Page in Sunday’s (9/29) Washington Post. “Mr. Bernheimer, who won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism as a classical music writer at the Los Angeles Times, had been ill with sarcoma for several years, according to his wife, theater critic Linda Winer…. In part because he was so pointed and hilarious in some of his put-downs, he was read by many people who had no special interest in classical music…. To those who knew only Mr. Bernheimer’s prose, it came as a surprise to learn that he was a gentle, gracious and tender man to his colleagues…. Mr. Bernheimer was born in Munich on Sept. 28, 1936. His father was a member of an esteemed family of antique dealers, and his mother was a noted artist in Weimar Germany…. Martin and his parents moved to Massachusetts in 1939…. Mr. Bernheimer … studied music history and musicology at Brown University, graduating in 1958…. Much of his early writing was published in the Saturday Review…. He was a regular guest on the Metropolitan Opera radio quiz … and continued writing criticism, mostly for the Financial Times.”
Posted October 3, 2019
