Scholes, Percy (1877-1958), was an English music scholar and editor. Scholes wrote many influential books on music. He prepared most of them so that they could be easily understood by the average music lover. Some of his works, such as The Complete Book of Great Musicians (1923) and The Oxford Junior Companion to Music (1954), were aimed at young readers.
Scholes’s most important achievement was The Oxford Companion to Music. It was first published in 1938 and went through several revisions during the author’s lifetime and after his death. Scholes also wrote The Listener’s History of Music (1923-1929) as well as more specific historical works on music. Scholes worked to improve methods of music education. He organized Anglo-American conferences on music in 1929 and 1931, and he pioneered the use of radio and phonograph records as aids to teaching music. In addition to his deep understanding of music, Scholes was a skilled lexicographer (compiler of dictionaries).
Percy Alfred Scholes was born on July 24, 1877, in Leeds, England. He was a journalist for the Evening Standard from 1913 to 1920 and music critic for The Observer from 1920 to 1925. He lived in Switzerland from 1928 until his death on July 31, 1958.
