Great Musical Composers: German, French, and Italian

Fielding, in _Tom Jones_, has an amusing hit at the taste of the period--"It was Mr. Western's custom every afternoon, as soon as he was drunk, to hear his daughter play on the...

Palestrina's versatility and genius enabled him to lift ecclesiastical music out of the rigidity and frivolity characterising on either hand the opposing ranks of those that pre...

JOSEPH HAYDN was the eldest of the twenty children of Matthias Haydn, a wheelwright at Rohrau, Lower Austria, where he was born in 1732. At the age of twelve years he was engage...

When Queen Anne died and Handel's old patron became King of England, Handel was forbidden to appear before him, as he had not forgotten the musician's escapade; but his peace wa...

Haydn is illustrious in the history of art as a complete artistic life, which worked out all of its contents as did the great Goethe. In the words of a charming writer: "His lif...

Meyerbeer, a man of handsome private fortune, like Mendelssohn, made large sums by his operas, and was probably the wealthiest of the great composers. He lived a life of luxurio...

In the opera Gluck was one of the earliest masters who came under the influence of the new movement, and he anticipated Wagner in many of his reforms. He decreased the importanc...

Handel possessed an inexhaustible fund of melody of the noblest order; an almost unequalled command of musical expression; perfect power over all the resources of his science; t...

Verdi is the most nervous, theatric, sensuous composer of the present century. Measured by the highest standard, his style must be criticised as often spasmodic, tawdry, and mer...

"You always encouraged the object of my eternal regret in his labours; you took him under your protection, you neglected nothing that could increase his glory and his welfare. A...

He continued to pour out in careless profusion songs, symphonies, quartets, and operas, many of which knew no existence but in the score till after his death, hardly knowing of...

Rossini could write best when he was under the influence of Italian wine and sparkling champagne. Paisiello liked the warm bed in which to jot down his musical notions, and we a...

The unsettled and disheartening times disturbed all the relations of artists. There is but little record of Cherubini for several years. A significant passage in a letter writte...

Weber gives a picture of Beethoven--"The square Cyclopean figure attired in a shabby coat with torn sleeves." Everybody will remember his noble, austere face, as seen in the num...

Miss Smithson was speedily involved in great pecuniary difficulty, and, to add to her misfortunes, she fell down stairs and broke her leg, thus precluding her own appearance on...

He was appointed chapel-master at the Church of Foreign Missions, in which office he remained for six years, in the meanwhile marrying a charming woman, the daughter of Herr Zim...

In the long list of brilliant names which have illustrated the fine arts, there is none attached to a personality more interesting and impressive than that of Hector Berlioz. He...

In 1809 Spontini married the niece of Erard, the great pianoforte-maker, and was called to the direction of the Italian opera; but he retained this position only two years, from...

The young Rossini, after a year or two, came under the notice of the celebrated teacher Tesei, of Bologna, who gave him lessons in pianoforte playing and the voice, and obtained...

In 1797 Weber studied the piano and composition under Hanschkel, a thoroughly scientific musician, and found in his severe drill a happy counter-balancing influence to the more...

About the time of Chopin's arrival in Paris the political effervescence of the recent revolution had passed into art and letters. It was the oft-repeated battle of Romanticism a...

M. Bochsa some years afterwards produced "Mosé" as an oratorio in London, and it failed. A new libretto, however, "Pietro L'Eremito,"[G] again transformed the music into an oper...

With all concessions made to Mozart as the founder of the forms of modern opera, an equally high place must be given to Rossini for the vigour and audacity with which he made th...

"To the noble artist, who, surrounded by the Baal worship of corrupted art, has been able by his genius and science to preserve faithfully like another Elijah the worship of tru...

Rousseau's opera, "Le Devin du Village," was performed with considerable success, in spite of the repugnance of the orchestral performers, of whom Rousseau always spoke in terms...

The indifference of this Anacreon of music to renown is worthy of remark. He never attended the performance of his own pieces, and disdained applause. The highest and most value...

The peculiar character of Wagner's word-drama next arouses critical interest and attention. The composer is his own poet, and his creative genius shines no less here than in the...

One of the theatres opened during the revolutionary epoch was the Théâtre Feydeau. The second opera performed was Cherubini's "Lodoïska" (1791), at which he had been labouring f...

Vestris did not obtain his ballet music from the obdurate German; but, when Piccini's rival "_Iphigénie en Tauride_" was produced, such beautiful dance measures were furnished b...

From first to last it was the ambition of Berlioz to widen the domain of his art. He strove to attain a more intimate connection between instrumental music and poetry in the por...

The following biographical sketches were originally published in America by Mr. George T. Ferris, in two volumes, separately entitled _The Great German Composers_ and _The Great...