Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi

Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (2 October 1877 – 1 February 1944) was a French-British music critic and musicologist of Greek descent. He is especially noted for his writings on Russian classical music, particularly on the life and works of Modest Mussorgsky, and his close association with the French musical establishment.

Born in Marseille, Calvocoressi learned numerous languages in his youth and attempted various careers before settling on music criticism. His early career was spent as an influential music critic in Paris, where he contributed to English and French newspapers: Gil Blas, the Comoedia Illustré, The Morning Post and The Musical Times, among others. He was well acquainted with the city's musical figures, particularly Maurice Ravel. Alongside Ravel and the pianist Ricardo Viñes, Calvocoressi founded the Apaches musical society.

After serving as a cryptographer in England for World War I, he remained in London to continue criticism and musicological writing for the rest of his life. Although he wrote his later books in English and came to know English cultural figures such as Arnold Bennett and Ralph Vaughan Williams, his colleague Gerald Abraham remarked that "he never enjoyed the influence and authority in London that he had exercised in Paris". In addition to his writings on Russian music and Mussorgsky, he wrote on the music of Liszt, Glinka, Schumann, Koechlin and Debussy.

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