Dyneley Hussey

Dyneley Hussey (27 February 1893-6 September 1972) was a war poet, journalist, art critic and music critic.

Hussey was the son of Colonel Charles Edward Hussey and was born in India. He was educated at St Cyprian's School Eastbourne, The King's School Canterbury and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He served in World War I as a Lieutenant in the Thirteenth Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and published a book of war poems. Two of his most celebrated war poems are "An Oxford Retrospect" and "Courage". [George Herbert Clarke "A Treasury of War Poetry with Introduction and Notes"] He then spent five years in the finance department at the Admiralty.

He became an author and journalist and in 1923 was writing art criticism. [Ysanne Holt "British Artists and the Modernist Landscape" 2003 ] However his main interest was music and he wrote several works on opera. He was music critic for The Times from 1923 to 1946 and was also wrote successively for the Saturday Review, Weekend Review, and Spectator. During World War II he again took on an administrative post at the Admiralty. In 1946, he was chosen to deal with music on the BBC Third Programme and became music critic of The Listener, remaining until 1960. [Asa Briggs "The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom" 1995] He wrote several articles for the Musical Times under the title "The Musician's Gramaphone". He died at Cheltenham aged 79.

Hussey married Irene Duncan in 1926 and had a son and two daughters. She died in 1940 and he subsequently married Dr Florence Costello.

Works

*Fleur de Lys (war poems)
*Eurydice or the Nature of Opera
*Some Composers of Opera (1952)
*Verdi (1940 and 1968)
*Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1928)

References

* Who's Who