Music Theory Department

Arthur Darack, 1918-2007

First recipient of the PhD in music theory from IU

Arthur Darack, a prolific writer and publisher, cultural trendsetter, and provocateur, as well as Indiana University’s first PhD recipient in music theory, died at the age of 89 on June 29 in Dunedin, Florida. The cause of death was heart failure.

Known for his biting wit, Darack had three distinct careers: as an arts editor and critic; as a publishing entrepreneur who issued a number of consumer how-to books on diverse subjects; and as a financial columnist and day trader. From 1951 through 1967, he edited or contributed reviews to the Cincinnati Enquirer’s coverage of classical music, theater, books and visual arts. He was also a program annotator for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for several years and an adjunct professor of music at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music from 1960-1967. He also undertook “reviews” of Cincinnati Reds and Cincinnati Royals games in exchange with members of the Enquirer sports department who “reviewed” arts events.

Darack was an ardent supporter of new arts ventures in Cincinnati, including the Contemporary Arts Center and Playhouse in the Park. He wrote program notes for numerous recordings and art publications, and was a frequent contributor to the Saturday Review of Literature. He championed many 20th century composers, authors, performers and visual artists, including the American composer George Rochberg, with whom he had served in World War II, and the eminent Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, for whom his son is named.

With Luke Feck, a Cincinnati Enquirer columnist, and Dino Santangelo, a promoter and publicist, Darack co-founded the monthly magazine Dimension: Cincinnati in 1963 and served as its editor until the magazine folded in 1965. Patterned in large part after The New Yorker of that period, except that it ran photographs, Dimension:Cincinnati was one of the first attempts to launch an urban arts and leisure publication outside of New York and served as a template for many that followed.

In 1967 Darack moved to Chicago to become senior fine arts editor of Encyclopedia Britannica, and continued his career in arts criticism as a freelancer with the Chicago Daily News and then with the Chicago Tribune. From 1972-78 he served as managing editor of Consumers Digest Magazine, and was a syndicated columnist for Value-Line Investments and the Register and Tribune syndicate. At its peak, his “Buy Right” column was carried in more than 100 newspapers.

In association with Consumers Digest, Playboy Press, Prentice Hall, Stein & Day, Crowell Collier, McGraw Hill and other publishers, Darack authored and published a series of consumer how-to books on such topics as automobile, appliance and power tool repair, plumbing, diet and nutrition, home improvement, stereo systems, used cars and stock market trading, and made numerous TV appearances to promote the books.

The stock market book took Darack in yet another new career direction, as investments editor for the Hume MoneyLetter. Moving to Clearwater, FL in 1987, he continued to write investment columns for various newsletters and to engage in day trading in the financial markets, an activity he continued for the rest of his life.

Arthur Darack was born January 1, 1918 in Royal Oak, MI, one of eight children of Sonia and Charles Darack, who had emigrated from Odessa, the Ukraine. The family moved soon thereafter to Cincinnati, where Darack graduated from Walnut Hills High School in 1935. Darack aspired to a career as a pianist, but his father had died in 1929, and without funds to attend college, he supported himself as a haberdashery salesman and a pianist in piano bars, in one of which he met his future wife. Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941, he served until 1945 as a company clerk in the Military Police, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. In 1942 he married Jean Puttmyer of Newport, KY, a writer, arts publicist and public health administrator, and a collaborator in many of his editorial ventures. She died in March 2006.

Upon his discharge from the Army, Darack attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music on the G.I. Bill, earning his BA in Music with a major in piano in 1948, and his Masters in music theory and composition in 1950. Pursuing doctoral studies at Indiana University School of Music, he earned its first Ph.D. in Music Theory in 1951, with a dissertation on “Aesthetics of Music: Early Greek Views.” At that point he returned to Cincinnati and began his editorial career with the Enquirer.