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Percy Reeve (born 21 December 1855; date of death not known) was an English composer and music critic. Reeve wrote several successful , often as companion pieces to longer works, as well as music for other theatrical pieces and serious music during the last two decades of the 19th century. As a music critic, he wrote extensively for Punch, The Saturday Review and other publications.
Reeve's operetta A Private Wire (1883) ran for more than nine months at the Savoy Theatre as a Curtain raiser to Iolanthe. The same year, he wrote Love & Music, a book of poetry.Reeve, Percy. Love and Music, 1883, London: David Bogue He later composed the music for "Ruddy George, or Robin Redbreast", at Toole's Theatre (1887; a burlesque of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore) to a libretto by H. G. F. Taylor.Moss, Simon. "Other Items: Ruddy George" at Gilbert & Sullivan: a selling exhibition of memorabilia, c20th.com, accessed April 30, 2012 In 1888, Reeve wrote about his old school in "An Eton Half Holiday".Reeve, Percy. "An Eton Half Holiday", Hood's Comic Annual, 1888 His operetta The Crusader and the Craven (1890), with words by W. Allison, had a long run at the Gielgud Theatre (opening as an afterpiece to an operatic adaptation of The Black Rover) due to its "bright and taking music", The Theatre, vol. 16, London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, p. 257, 1 November 1890 despite a libretto described by a later critic as "almost heroically banal", with lines such as, "I am a fierce crusader, a terror to each foe, to infidel invader, I carry death and woe".Barber, Malcolm. "Review", The International History Review, Vol. 23, No. 3 (September 2001), pp. 676-77 He contributed to Cupid & Co. in 1894.Scowcroft, Philip L. "A 162nd Garland of British Light Music Composers". MusicWeb International, accessed 11 September 2010 Reeve also wrote music for burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre and incidental music for West End plays, as well as serious chamber music, and songs to texts by a wide range of authors, from Théophile Gautier to E. Nesbit to Henry Pottinger Stephens. British Library catalogue, accessed 11 September 2010
Reeve was also a prolific musical journalist, contributing to a wide range of publications including Punch, The Saturday Review and The Daily Telegraph. In 1896 he was appointed editor of The Lute, a music magazine. After Reeve's death, Lord Northcliffe recalled him in The Musical Times: "He was on my staff for a time, as musical critic; sensitive little man, with beautiful hands – irritable!" The Musical Times, 1 November 1931, p. 990
As a fluent French speaker, he was responsible for the English translation used by F. C. Burnand, and the lyrics, for Edmond Audran's Miss Helyett (1890), staged successfully in London as Miss Decima in 1891.
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