Search >> Fry, William Henry (1813-1864)

Composer, Lecturer, Music Critic, Journalist.

A native of Philadelphia, William Henry Fry displayed musical talent at an early age. He taught himself to play the piano after listening to his older brother’s piano lessons. After this remarkable feat, Fry’s family determined that he should become more serious about his musical studies. As a teenager, Fry studied with the top teachers, including Leopold Meignen. At the age of fourteen, Fry wrote his first overture and six years later the Philadelphia Philharmonic Society performed another of his pieces.

Fry’s creative talents soon extended into the world of opera. One work, Leonora, “which is known as the first publicly performed grand opera written by a native American,” was written by his brother Joseph Reese Fry and is based on Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Lady of Lyons (Cole). Fry experimented with various musical forms, but he is best known for his four symphonies: The Breaking Heart, A Day in the Country, Santa Claus, or the Christmas Symphony, and Childe Harold.

Despite his great talent, Fry treated music as a hobby rather than as a career. In 1836, he began working as a journalist for his father at the National Gazette shortly after Robert Walsh left the publication. A few years later he left the Gazette to become editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger. Fry also spent several years in Europe where he worked as a correspondent for the Ledger, the New York Tribune and other papers. After returning to New York in 1852, he took the position of music editor at the Tribune. While working as a journalist, Fry wrote music for the Stabat Mater (1855), a medieval sacred text, and for an opera based on the writings of Victor Hugo for which his brother Joseph wrote the libretto, titled Notre Dame de Paris (1863).

Fry is listed among the many associates of Ada Clare, the “Queen of Bohemia,” but his presence at Pfaff’s cannot be confirmed.

Fry is remembered more for his status as the “first successful American opera composer” than for his flare or innovation. The operas themselves were not especially groundbreaking. They “contained ingratiating melodies” but lacked “dramatic force”; nevertheless, “his fluent pen and ready speech made him a power in furthering American music” (Cole).

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References & Biographical Resources

"Brigham Young’s Two Hours with Horace Greeley." New-York Saturday Press. 27 Aug. 1859: 2. [more about this work]

Cole, Fannie L. Gwinner. "William Henry Fry." Dictionary of American Biography. Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2006. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC. [more about this work]

Congdon, Charles T. Reminiscences of a Journalist. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1880. [more about this work]

[pages: 235-238]

"Literary Notes." New York Saturday Press. 3 Dec. 1859: 2. [more about this work]

O'Brien, Fitz-James. "Dramatic Feuilleton." Saturday Press. 13 Nov. 1858: 3. [more about this work]

O'Brien mentions him as the musical critic of the Tribune (3). [pages: 3]

Odell, George Clinton. Annals of the New York Stage: Volume VI (1850-1857). New York: Columbia University Press, 1931. [more about this work]

Odell mentions him as a lecturer and critic. He is also identified as W.H. Fry and mentioned as assisting a musical performance at the Odeon (276).

Odell also mentions Fry's Sabat Mater and that a performance of it was not given. [pages: 276,415]

Odell, George Clinton. Annals of the New York Stage: Volume VII (1857-1865). New York: Columbia University Press, 1931. [more about this work]

He may be the W.H. Fry Odell lists. Odell includes an odd listing of opera by a Fry called Leonora. He is also credited with the composition of the overature of Evangeline performed by Kate Bateman. [pages: 65,215]

"One Thing and Another." New York Saturday Press. 19 Mar. 1859: 2. [more about this work]

Personne [Wilkins, Edward G. P.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 19 Mar. 1859: 3. [more about this work]

Personne notes how Dion Bourcicault's response in the Tribune to critiques of the English actors in New York contradict Fry's remarks in the Tribune. Personne also reprints an article in the Courrier des Etats-Unis that makes reference to Fry (3). [pages: 3]

Personne [Wilkins, Edward G. P.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 9 Apr. 1859: 2. [more about this work]

Personne writes that he finds the articles of the Cincinnati opera critics more amusing than Fry's (2). [pages: 2]

Personne [Wilkins, Edward G. P.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 21 May 1859: 2-3. [more about this work]

Personne borrows from Fry's review of Mme. de Wilhorst in the Tribune (3). [pages: 3]

Personne [Wilkins, Edward G. P.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 28 May 1859: 3. [more about this work]

Personne makes a passing mention of Fry. [pages: 3]

Personne [Wilkins, Edward G. P.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 19 Nov. 1859: 3. [more about this work]

Personne refers to "the esthetic Fry's" review of Sicilian Vespers in the Tribune (3). [pages: 3]

Personne [Wilkins, Edward G. P.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New-York Saturday Press. 10 Mar. 1860: 3. [more about this work]

Personne claims that the black ushers employed by Le Chauvre at the Winter Garden have made blunders that make even Fry "waver" in their anti-slavery beliefs (3). [pages: 3]

Quelqu'un [Winter, William]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 26 Mar. 1859: 2. [more about this work]

Quelqu'un reports that he checked the Tribune for "the aesthetic Fry's" review of Brougham's new piece at the Bowery (2). [pages: 2]

Rawson, A. L. "A Bygone Bohemia." Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 1896. 96-107. [more about this work]

A member of Clare 's coterie of Bohemians. He is identified as an "operatic composer." [pages: 103]

Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II, Crane-Grimshaw. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888. [more about this work]

While citing him as an "accomplished man," Appleton presents Fry's career as a composer, while being ground-breaking for an Ameircan, did not result in financial success or critical acclaim. [pages: 557, 558]

[Boston Courier correspondent]. "Fry." New-York Saturday Press. 12 Mar. 1859: 4. [more about this work]