The Mentor: Makers of Modern Opera, Vol. 1, Num. 47, Serial No. 47

Henry Edward Krehbiel was an American music critic and musicologist who was the chief music critic of The New York Tribune for more than forty years. Along with his contemporaries Richard Aldrich, Henry Theophilus Finck, W.J. Henderson and James Huneker, Krehbiel is considered part of the 'Old Guard', a group of leading New York–based music critics who first established a uniquely American school of criticism. A critic with a strong bend towards empiricism, he frequently sought out first hand experiences, accounts and primary sources when writing; drawing his own conclusions rather than looking to what other writers had already written. A meliorist, Krehbiel believed that the role of criticism was largely to support music that uplifted the human spirit and intellect, and that criticism should serve not only as a means of taste making but also as a mode to educate the public. His book How to Listen to Music was widely used as an instructional guide by the music consuming public in the United States during the last years of the 19th century and first several decades of the 20th century.