Charles Lewis Gruneisen

Charles Lewis Gruneisen (1806–1879) was an English journalist and musical critic.

Early life He was born in Bloomsbury, London, 2 November 1806, son of Charles Gruneisen from Stuttgart, naturalised as British in 1796. He was educated by a private tutor and at Pentonville academy, with studies completed in the Netherlands.

Gruneisen started to write as a young man, and in 1832 was appointed sub-editor of The Guardian, the conservative Anglican weekly. He became editor of the British Traveller and Commercial and Law Gazette, a London evening paper, in 1833, and in the same year managed the foreign department of the Morning Post, and also a sub-editor.

Gruneisen died at his residence, 16 Surrey Street, Strand, London, 1 November 1879, and was buried in the western side of Highgate Cemetery on 7 November.

Interests The Royal Italian Opera was established at Covent Garden in 1846, with Michael Costa as conductor; it was backed by Gruneisen, who had helped to plan it. In 1849 he dealt with Giacomo Meyerbeer over the Covent Garden production of Le prophète. In 1869 he publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the management of Frederick Gye; who broke with Gruneisen and entered into partnership with James Henry Mapleson.

Gruneisen was one of the main founders and a director of the Conservative Land Society 7 September 1852, and acted as secretary of it from 1853 to December 1872. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a member of the Society of Arts and of the Royal Literary Fund, and one of the trustees of the Newspaper Press Fund.

Works Gruneisen was the author of The Opera and the Press (1869) and of Sketches of Spain and the Spaniards during the Carlist Civil War (1874). He also wrote a short Memoir of Meyerbeer, and contributed notes to Wilhelm Adolf Lampadius's Life of Mendelssohn, 1876.

Family In 1839 Gruneisen married Emma Jane Moore.

In media In the 2017 documentary film Gruneisen: El primer corresponsal de guerra, Gruneisen is played by Álvaro de Paz.