Henry Taylor Parker

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Henry Taylor Parker (April 29, 1867 – March 30, 1934), known for years by his initials H. T. P., was a prominent American theater and music critic in Boston. Time magazine called his reviews famous and said he was Boston’s oracle on theatre and music for 29 years. He was considered one of the era’s great critics, praised for long, thoughtful, and open-minded writing. A biographer described him as a small man with sharp eyes and a keen, sleuthing mind.

Parker attended Harvard University but left, unhappy with the limited drama and literature courses. He worked as a newspaper correspondent before becoming the drama and music critic for the New York Globe in the early 1900s. In 1905, he returned to Boston to write for the Boston Evening Transcript, where he stayed for the rest of his life.

Boston’s strict censorship could stifle art, but Parker helped keep the city’s theatre scene vital through his influential criticism. In 1922, he published Eighth Notes: Voices and Figures of Music and the Dance.

Parker was a distinctive character. His initials earned him nicknames like “Hard-to-Please” and “Hell-to-Pay,” though he was seldom cruel in his judgments. His reviews were known for their length, ornate style, independence, and insight. He wrote mainly in the early morning, longhand on yellow paper, and spent afternoons in the Transcript office proofreading and editing.

He helped launch other artists’ careers, including Virgil Thomson; Parker arranged for Thomson to critique musical events in Paris for the Boston Transcript, kickstarting Thomson’s career as a professional critic. Ernest Bloch corresponded with Parker about music as well.

Parker died of pneumonia at 66, just days before a Metropolitan Opera visit to Boston he had helped promote. His letters and papers are kept in libraries, and his life was documented in the biography H. T. P.: Portrait of a Critic. Some of his reviews were collected and published after his death.