The Biographical Dictionary of America/Apthorp, William Foster

APTHORP, William, Foster, critic, was born in Boston, Mass., Oct. 24, 1848; son of Robert East and Eliza Henshaw (Hunt) Apthorp; grandson of John Trecothick and Mary Spear (Foster) Apthorp; and a descendant of Charles Apthorp, who came to America from England early in the 18th century and was a prominent Boston merchant, and whose brother, East Apthorp, was the first rector of Christ church, Cambridge, Mass. William Foster was graduated at Harvard in 1869, and studied harmony and counterpoint under J. K. Paine, and pianoforte under J. K. Paine and B. J. Lang. He was a teacher of music in the National college of music, 1872-'73; in the New England conservatory, 1874-'84; and in the college of music, Boston university, 1880-'84. He was musical critic for the Atlantic Monthly, 1872-'76; for the Boston Sunday Courier, 1876-'78; musical and dramatic critic for the Daily Evening Traveller, 1878-80; and for the Evening Transcript, from 1880. He was musical editor of Scribner's Cyclopœdia of Music and Musicians (3 vols., 1888-'90), and is the author of "Hector Berlioz, Autobiography and Musical Grotesques" (1879); "Musicians and Music Lovers" (1894); "Jacques Damour and Other Stories," translated from Zola (1895); "By The Way" (1898), being a collection of his contributions to the programmes of the Boston symphony concerts, and "The Opera, Past and Present" (1901). He married Octavie Lois Iasigi in 1876.