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The Philolexian Society of Columbia University

Gustav Kobbé

Columbia College, Class of 1877

Music critic of the New York Herald for eighteen years; his Complete Opera Book has stayed in print for over a century.

From Notable Alumni · Foundation editorial

Music critic of the New York Herald for eighteen years; his Complete Opera Book has stayed in print for over a century. Gustav Kobbé (CC 1877, LL.B. 1879, M.A. 1880) collected three Columbia degrees and then spent his entire working life in newspapers, which is one way of reading the value of a legal education. He was music critic of the Herald under James Gordon Bennett for eighteen years; before that the World had sent him to Bayreuth in 1882 to cover the first performance of Parsifal, an assignment that would now be given to a bureau chief and was then given to a man of twenty-five. He wrote for the Century, Scribner's, the North American Review and the Ladies' Home Journal, edited The Lotus Magazine, and produced some twenty-five books. One of them refused to die. The Complete Opera Book appeared posthumously in 1919, was taken over and enlarged by the Earl of Harewood, and is still on sale as Kobbé's Complete Opera Book: a hundred and seven years of continuous print, which is more than can be said for most of the operas in it. He did not live to see the first edition: on 27 July 1918 he was sailing on Great South Bay when a seaplane coming down to land struck his boat and killed him instantly.

Vital

Full name
Gustav Kobbé

Columbia & the Society

Columbia
Class of 1877 (Columbia College)

Works (61)

  1. 1889 The New Jersey Coast and Pines: An Illustrated Guide-Book · Short Hills, N.J.: published by the author
  2. 1890 Staten Island
  3. 1891 New York and Its Environs · Harper & Brothers, New York
  4. 1894 Some Facts about Flags · Scientific American
  5. 1894 Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung · G. Schirmer, New York
  6. 1896 My Rosary, and Other Poems · George H. Richmond & Co., New York
  7. 1896 Wagner’s Life and Works · 2 vols.
  8. 1901 Opera Singers: A Pictorial Souvenir · R. H. Russell, New York
  9. 1902 Richard Strauss and His Music · The North American Review
  10. 1902 Signora
  11. 1902 Signora: A Child of the Opera House · Novel
  12. 1902 Wagner, Minna and Cosima · The North American Review
  13. 1904 Wagner’s Music-Dramas Analyzed · G. Schirmer, New York
  14. 1905 Famous Actors and Their Homes · Little, Brown, and Company, Boston
  15. 1905 Famous Actresses and Their Homes · Boston: Little, Brown, 1905
  16. 1905 Franz Liszt and His Carolyne · The North American Review
  17. 1905 The Loves of Great Composers · Thomas Y. Crowell, New York
  18. 1906 Famous American Songs · Thomas Y. Crowell, New York
  19. 1906 How to Appreciate Music · Moffat, Yard & Company, New York
  20. 1907 The Pianolist: A Guide for Pianola Players · Moffat, Yard & Company, New York
  21. 1913 Opera Singers
  22. 1916 How to understand Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung
  23. 1919 The Complete Opera Book · G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York & London
  24. 1932 Wagner's Music Dramas Analyzed With the Leading Motives · New York: Schirmer, 1932
  25. 1877 A tribute to the dog
  26. 1877 All-of-a-sudden Carmen
  27. 1877 An island of New England
  28. 1877 Cherubs in art ...
  29. 1877 Comp Opera Bk -OS
  30. 1877 Famous actors & actresses and their homes
  31. 1877 Heath house guide
  32. 1877 Kobbé's complete opera book
  33. 1877 Loving yet hating
  34. 1877 Merlin
  35. 1877 Modern women
  36. 1877 New Jersey Coast and Pines
  37. 1877 Plays
  38. 1877 Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
  39. 1877 The Aeoloian Pipe-Organ
  40. 1877 The American stage and those who have made it famous
  41. 1877 The Central Railroad of New Jersey
  42. 1877 The complete opera book, the Stories of the operas together with leading airs and motives in musical notation
  43. 1877 The definitive Kobbe's opera book
  44. 1877 The Great Operas of Giacomo Puccini - An Account of the Life and Work of This Distinguished Composer, with Particular Attention to His Operas
  45. 1877 The Great Operas of Richard Wagner - An Account of the Life and Work of This Distinguished Composer, with Particular Attention to His Operas - ... Portraits in Costume and Scenes from Opera
  46. 1877 The Great Operas of Vincenzo Bellini - An Account of the Life and Work of This Distinguished Composer, with Particular Attention to His Operas
  47. 1877 The Great Operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - An Account of the Life and Work of This Distinguished Composer, with Particular Attention to His Operas ... Portraits in Costume and Scenes from Opera
  48. 1877 The Hudson-Fulton celebration
  49. 1877 The Hudson-Fulton celebration, MCMIX
  50. 1877 The jealous husband
  51. 1877 The light-houses of the United States in 1874
  52. 1877 The Memory of a song
  53. 1877 The music-dramas of Richard Wagner
  54. 1877 The New Kobbe's Complete Opera Book. Ed. and Rev. by the Earl of Harewood.
  55. 1877 The New Pocket Kobbé's Opera Book
  56. 1877 The Pianolist
  57. 1877 Tout l'opéra
  58. 1877 Two belles to a beau, or, The leap year proposal
  59. 1877 Wagner and His Isolde
  60. 1877 Wagner's music-dramas analysed, with the leading motives
  61. 1877 Wanted, a nurse

Primary sources

The Foundation's research archive

Philolexian Annals 1912, Roll of Members

GEORGE C. KOBBÉ · Confidence: CERTAIN

Philolexian Annals 1912, Roll of Members

Gustave Kobbé · Confidence: CERTAIN

External references

Community-maintained record

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