Chorley_1

Chorley, Henry Fothergill, was born at Blackley Hurst, Lancashire, in 1808. After a desultory education he gave up the idea of making music his profession, and coming to London took to journalism, and found employment on the Athenaum. Here his musical knowledge served him in good stead, and he acquired a high reputation as a critic, much of his ephemeral work being summed up in two entertaining books, Modern German Music, and Thirty Years' Musical Recollections. He was an appreciative supporter of Hullah, Gounod, and Sullivan, but failed to see any merit in Schumann, Berlioz, or Wagner. A personal friend of Mendelssohn, he wrote a preface to his Letters. Numberless libretti came from his pen, among them Wallace's Amber Witch, Benedict's St. Cecilia, Sullivan's Kenilworth, and Bennett's May Queen. He was the author, too, of many songs, and of a few forgotten novels and plays. He died in 1872.