Eric Blom

[b]Eric Blom[/b] (20 August 1888, Bern, Switzerland — 11 April 1959, London) was a British lexicographer, self-taught musicologist, music critic, editor, and translator of Swiss origins. He was the editor of [url=https://discogs.com/label/126078]Oxford[/url]'s [i]Music & Letters[/i] academic journal (1937 to 1950, and 1954–59) and chief music critic at [i][l=The Observer][/i] newspaper (1949 to 1953). Blom is best known as the editor of the 5th edition of [i]Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians[/i] ([url=https://discogs.com/label/913580]Macmillan[/url], 1954).

Blom spent his childhood in German-speaking Switzerland, raised in a family with a Swiss mother and father of Danish and British descent; he grew up fluent in several languages. In music, Eric was primarily self-educated. His writing career began when he assisted [a=Rosa Newmarch] with program notes for [a=Sir Henry Wood]'s renowned [i]BBC Proms[/i] concert series, praised by critics for accuracy and in-depth detail. Between 1923 and 1931, Eric worked as the [i]Manchester Guardian[/i]'s music correspondent in London. He then relocated to join the [i]Birmingham Post[/i] editorial, where Blom remained for 15 years, until 1946. Three years later, he returned to London and became a music critic for [i][l=The Observer][/i].

In 1950, Blom stepped down from his [i]Music & Letters[/i] duties at [l=Oxford University Press] as he accepted the offer from [b][url=https://discogs.com/label/913580]Macmillan Publishers[/url][/b] to work on the upcoming new edition of the [i]Grove's Dictionary[/i]. Eric already had experience as a lexicographer after working on [i]Everyman's Dictionary of Music[/i] for [url=https://discogs.com/label/712438]J. M. Dent[/url] in 1946. His predecessor at Macmillan, [b]H. C. Colles[/b] (1879—1943), preferred to abridge and concise articles, keeping "[i]Grove III[/i]" (1927) and "[i]Grove IV[/i]" (1940) at five and six volumes even with abundant updates and numerous new biographies. Blom took the opposite approach and aggressively expanded the Dictionary; he authored hundreds of entries and translated from German, Danish, Italian, and French. "[i]Grove V[/i]" came out in 1954, clocking at nine volumes. The same year, Eric Blom returned to [i]Music & Letters[/i] since its chief editor, [url=https://discogs.com/artist/12381886]Richard Capell[/url] (1885—1954), died. (In 1959, [url=https://discogs.com/artist/3560402]J. A. Westrup[/url] succeeded Blom.)

At Blom's funeral, an organist caused a hysterical commotion by misunderstanding the instructions; Eric explicitly chose the funeral music in his will, [url=https://discogs.com/artist/95537]J.S. Bach[/url]'s final prelude BWV 668 [i]Vor Deinen Thron Tret' Ich[/i] ("I step before thy throne, o Lord"). The local musician, however, misheard "[i]Bach's chorale[/i]" as "[i]Barcarolle[/i]" and proceeded with [url=https://discogs.com/artist/95540]Offenbach[/url]'s cheerful and vivacious tune from [i]The Tales of Hoffmann[/i], highly awkward and inappropriate on the tragic occasion.