Death of Parker

In the composing room of the Boston Transcript most of last week there was no scroogy handwriting to labor over, no fierce-eyed little man popping in at the door with sharp invectives. The little man was missed at the Friday afternoon Symphony where for years he had sat in the front row of the balcony, the seat beside him vacant. That night Henry Taylor Parker ("H. T. P.") died of pneumonia. He was 66. For 29 years he had been Boston's oracle on theatre and music.

Critic Parker's initials, all he ever signed, gave him the nicknames of "Hard-to-Please" and "Hell-to-Pay." But he was seldom vitriolic. His reviews were famed chiefly for their length (1,250 words, at least), their ornate, old-fashioned sentences, their freshness and independence of viewpoint. Boston knew him for a sputtery, gnomelike person who wore a flowing cape for evening, carried a stout bamboo stick, shunned conversation. He did most of his writing between 3 and 5 a. m., always in longhand on yellow ruled paper. Afternoons saw him in his musty, little Transcript office, painstakingly correcting proof, sorting and editing the world's stage news. No one ever dared to call his page provincial.

Parker's death robbed Boston of its second great critic within the season. Philip Hale retired from the Herald at 79 (TIME, Nov. 20). For the past few weeks Critic Parker had worked to stir up interest in the Metropolitan Opera's visit to Boston, its first in 16 years.* He died three days before the opening.

*The Boston visit is the Met's big out-of-town venture this season. After eight performances there, it goes to Baltimore for three, then to Rochester to put on Merry Mount for the benefit of Composer Howard Hanson's townsfolk who could not get to the Manhattan premiere (TIME, Feb. 19).

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