Richard Pohl

Richard Pohl (September 12, 1826 – December 17, 1896) was a German music critic, writer, poet, and amateur composer.

He figured prominently in the mid-century War of the Romantics, taking the side opposite Eduard Hanslick, and championing the "Music of the Future" (the progressive Romantic style of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner).

Later, after a brief stint teaching at Graz, he moved to Dresden; there he worked on the Neue Musikzeitung between 1852 and 1854.

In 1854 Pohl moved to Weimar, where he became an editor at the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.

He wrote invective-laden articles under the pseudonym "Hoplit" (from the Greek term hoplite, the foot-soldier of ancient Greece) in support of Liszt and Wagner, and critical of music of the more conservative Romantic composers.