Background
His mother was Sarah (Michaels) Woolf.
Benjamin was trained in music and drawing by his father, and in academic subjects in the New York public schools.
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Benjamin Edward Woolf
Edit ProfileCareer
In 1859 he joined the orchestra of the Boston Museum, then conducted by Julius Eichberg [q. v. ], for whose operetta, The Doctor of Alcantara, he wrote the libretto.
The operetta, Pounce & Co. , or Capital vs. Labor (1882), for which Woolf wrote both the words and the music, was an especially effective hit.
During his years of intensive composing Woolf lived mostly in Boston, though for two seasons (1864 - 66) he conducted the orchestra of the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia.
For a short time he was similarly engaged at New Orleans.
A year later he had an invitation from Col. Henry J. Parker, Boston publisher, to join the editorial staff of the Saturday Evening Gazette, then a prosperous and influential publication.
Henry M. Dunham [q. v. ] says of him in recalling the reactions of the younger musicians of the eighties and nineties toward criticism: "We disliked him extremely because of his rough and uncompromising style.
He had almost no concession to offer for anyone's shortcomings, and on that very account what he had to say carried additional weight with the artist he was criticising" (The Life of a Musician, 1931, p. 220).
Woolf continued to do creative as well as critical writing.
[Sources include The Am.
Hist.
and Encyc.
of Music, vol.
II (1908), ed.
There is a nearly complete file of the Sat.
Evening Gazette in the Boston Pub.
Lib. ]
Connections
- married:
- Josephine
- nephew:
- W.
He was married on Apr. 15, 1867, to Josephine Orton, actress, of the Boston Museum Stock Company.
by W. L. Hubbard; Philip Hale, in Musical Courier, Feb. 13, 1901, and in Boston Morning Jour., Feb. 8, 1901; Boston Daily Globe, Feb. 8, 1901; information from Woolf's nephew, S. J. Woolf of New York City.
