Obituary: Moses Baritz (1938)

Obituary from 31st March 1938 issue of the Manchester Guardian

Mr. Moses Baritz

Mr. Moses Baritz, the well-known Manchester lecturer on music, has died in the Manchester Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital at the age of 54. He was one of the earliest advocates of the commercial recording of classical music for the gramophone. Among his musical interests the history and aesthetics of opera took first place. He accumulated a vast store of knowledge of opera and, in particular, of Wagnerian music dramas. He lectured many years ago on classical music to working-class audiences, and when broadcasting opened out unlimited fields for the spread of musical appreciation he was one of the first to give radio talks on music and gramophone lecture recitals. A friend said of him yesterday: "He was possibly the first serious musician to advocate the use of the gramophone in the recording of major works, and he had the satisfaction of seeing his policy realised. For many years he was lecturer and musical adviser to the Columbia Graphophone Company, but he steadfastly refused to go to London to live, maintaining that the cultural facilities were better in Manchester. He also said that he could not do his work without the use of the Henry Watson Music Library, which, in his opinion, was the best of its kind in the world. As a man he hid a very generous disposition under a certain brusqueness of manner."

His interests were not only musical. He lectured in the United States, for instance, on economics as well as on music. He will he remembered as a leading figure in the lively debates of the Manchester County Forum before the war and he was known or. many platforms as a forceful advocate of Socialism. Research into the associations of Marx and Engels with Manchester was a particular hobby of his. and until recently he had been collecting material for a book on the subject.

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The Socialist Standard obituary for Moses Baritz can be accessed at the following link.