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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

The Music Master (play)

play by Charles Klein

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ7752742 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Music Master was a theatrical play written by Charles Klein, and produced and directed by David Belasco.

Background

The three-act comedy-drama opened at the Belasco Theatre in New York on September 26, 1904. It ran for 124 performances before it was moved to the Bijou Theatre where it ran for another 511 performances over that and the next two seasons (taking summers off), before going on tour. David Warfield originated the title role, Anton Von Barwig, and continued playing it in revivals and on tour for two decades. William Furst composed the play's incidental music. It was adapted into the film The Music Master.

References

Bibliography

Mantle, Burns and Garrison P. Sherwood, eds., The Best Plays of 1899-1909, Philadelphia, The Blakiston Company, 1947.

The Music Master clipping/theatrical program folder held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Music Master (play)” as play by Charles Klein. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1904, 1899, 1909, 1947—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Music, Master and play can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as play by Charles Klein. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7752742. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1899, 1909 and 1947.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Music Master (play)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Music Master (play) primary sources, The Music Master (play) archive and Music research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Music Master (play)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Music Master (play)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.