Percy Scholes

Percy Alfred Scholes M.A., Hon.D.Mus. (Oxon), F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S., A.R.C.M., F.T.S.C. (24 July 1877 – 31 July 1958) was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music. His 1948 biography The Great Dr Burney was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

He was born in Leeds in 1877 and was educated privately, owing to his poor health as a child. He became an organist, schoolteacher, music journalist, lecturer, an Inspector of Music in Schools to London University and the Organist and Music Master of Kent College, Canterbury (1900), All Saints, Vevey, Switzaland (1902) as well as Kingswood College, Grahamstown, South Africa (1904). He was Registrar at the City of Leeds (Municipal) School of Music (1908-1912). At various times he was music critic for the Evening Standard, The Observer (1920–1927) and the Radio Times (1923–1929). He was made an Officer of the Star of Rumania in 1930. He was founder and general secretary of the Anglo-American Conference on Musical Education, Lausanne (1929 and 1931); the president of the Union of Directors of Music in Secondary Schools; founder and editor The Music Student (which later became The Music Teacher); and during the First World War he directed the Music section of the Y. M. C. A. for the troops at home and abroad. He ended his days in Cornaux, Chamby sur Montreux in Switzerland.

He wrote over 30 books, mainly concerning music appreciation, but his best-known work is The Oxford Companion to Music, which was first published in 1938. This work took him six years to produce and consisted of over a million words (surpassing the length of the Bible). Scholes was assisted by various clerical assistants, but wrote virtually all the text himself. The only exceptions were the article on tonic sol-fa (for which he was dissatisfied with his own article) and the synopses of the plots of operas (which he regarded as too boring). Although the Oxford Companion to Music was (and is) regarded as authoritative, the text of the first edition is enlivened by Scholes' own anecdotal and sometimes quirky style.

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