Thompson was born in Crawfordsville, Ind. , in 1887. He was the third son and youngest of four children of Will Henry and Ida (Lee) Thompson. His mother was the daughter of a Crawfordsville railroad president, John Lee. His father, a Confederate veteran, born in Georgia of Scotch-Irish and German descent, had moved in 1868 to Indiana with his brother James Maurice Thompson, later a prominent author. Both worked for a time as civil engineers but turned to the practice of law, a calling in which Will Thompson continued for the rest of his life, although his poem, "The High Tide at Gettysburg" (Century Magazine, July 1888), attracted some attention. In 1889 he moved his family and his practice to Seattle, Wash.
Education
Oscar Thompson attended Seattle public schools and studied music from childhood with private teachers.
Career
Though he later made some public appearances as a singer, he chose journalism for a career. At sixteen he was a reporter on the Seattle Times, and by 1909, at twenty-one or twenty-two, he was assistant editor of the Seattle Star. He then moved to Tacoma, Wash. , where he worked as telegraph editor of the News (1909 – 13) and then as managing editor of the Ledger (1913 – 17). On the Ledger, along with his editorial duties, he wrote music, drama, and book criticism.
He served in the army during World War I and then returned to Tacoma as city editor of the News Tribune. Music, however, had remained a strong interest, and late in 1919 Thompson moved to New York City to become a critic on the staff of the magazine Musical America. He subsequently became associate editor and, from 1936 to 1943, editor. Concurrently he served as music critic of a succession of New York newspapers: the Evening Post (1928 – 34), the Times (1935), and the Sun, where he became first critic in 1937, succeeding William J. Henderson. This post Thompson held until his death.
Thompson is best remembered for his books. His first, Practical Music Criticism (1934), was an able treatment of the art of reviewing music for newspapers. His deep interest in singing led to The American Singer (1937), which traced the history of a century of opera singing in the United States through its principal participants. Perhaps his most significant work was The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians (1939), a one-volume compendium of information with feature articles by many eminent authorities, which became a standard reference in the field. His other books include How to Understand Music (1935) and Debussy, Man and Artist (1937), a biography. He also taught in the department of music of the extension division at Columbia University from 1939 to 1945.
As a writer, he favored exactness rather than the purple prose characteristic of more flamboyant critics of the day such as Henry T. Finck, James G. Huneker, and Paul Rosenfeld. His reporting was characterized by care and accuracy, qualities that stood him in good stead in his lexicographical labors with the International Cyclopedia.
Oscar Thompson died in New York City of hypertensive heart disease in his fifty-eighth year.
Achievements
Connections
Thompson married Janviere Maybin of Tacoma on April 14, 1914; their four children were Keith, Hugh (who attained some prominence as a baritone and as a stage director for the Metropolitan Opera Company), Letitia, and Janet. Mrs. Thompson died in 1923.