Story-Lives of Great Musicians

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and unusual spelling in the | | original document have be...

He had not proceeded many miles, however, ere the keen wind made his want of food painfully apparent, and the music within him became drowned by the clamourings of Nature. At th...

With this appointment Bach entered upon the final stage of his career, for he retained the Leipzig post until his death. The story of his connection with the Thomas-Schule is on...

As it was now settled that Handel should devote himself to music, it became necessary to place him with a good teacher. Friederich Zachau, an excellent musician, and the organis...

This first visit to England seems to have implanted in Handel a sincere affection for the country and its people, and although he returned to Hanover and took up his duties agai...

The welcome extended to Handel by the people of Dublin was a very warm one; the performances were a great success, and then we get the first public mention of the new oratorio....

Situated in the poorest quarter of the town, the house presented a sufficiently poverty-stricken appearance to warrant the meanest opinion being entertained with regard to Spang...

Joseph's unselfish and generous feelings may have helped to blind his vision to the little cloud which, almost from the moment when Michael's pure young treble notes first soare...

It is probable that the Countess had formed a very different conception of Haydn's appearance from his work, for she could scarcely conceal her surprise when he was ushered into...

The Handel Commemoration Festival--the fifth and last of the century--was held in Westminster Abbey during this visit, and it must have been a moving sight to Haydn to observe t...

In a small, barely-furnished apartment in the Archbishop's palace at Salzburg, in Austria-Hungary, on a winter's morning in the year 1766, a boy of ten years of age was seated a...

June 4 was fixed for celebrating the King's birthday, and for several days before this event the coaches had been arriving in London loaded with passengers from all parts of the...

The journey to Rome, in fact, was a succession of triumphs, which it would require a volume by itself to attempt to describe in detail. At Florence he was invited to play before...

The father, however, was soon to receive a communication which startled him into a knowledge of the true state of affairs. Wolfgang had formed a project for helping the Webers b...

It was at such times that the inspiration of true genius shone forth in his expression. Ordinarily there was nothing distinguished about his appearance; the head, with its profu...

Ludwig was now ten years old, and in the winter of 1781 he made his first essay at bread-winning for the family. The state of things at home was wretched in the extreme, and the...

In the midst of the whirl of work and entertainment into which the musical life of Vienna had plunged him, Beethoven was constant to those whom he had left behind him at Bonn. H...

Beethoven was by nature exceedingly unpunctual, and frequently kept his pupils waiting for their lessons. Even Madame von Breuning, for whom he had a strong affection, and who w...

One more picture, and our story ends. Beethoven was lying on his death-bed when the news was brought to him that Hummel, the musician, with whom he had been intimate in the old...

Schubert was now entering upon his seventeenth year, and stood at the entrance of a career in music which, judging from his compositions at the Convict school, must have seemed...

The five years which had elapsed since the friendship with Vogl began had been passed in the production, as we have seen, of an immense mass of compositions covering almost ever...

Thus sadly he wrote in the hour of bitterness, but happily for Schubert, and still more fortunately for us, there were brighter days yet in store for him, and the enthusiasm for...

Felix was by this time composing a great deal, and, though little more than twelve years old, work of a more serious kind than the writing of operettas had been claiming his att...

No sooner had the family established itself in the new home than the musical and artistic gatherings were resumed on an even larger scale than heretofore. The Sunday concerts we...

A dinner-party followed the concert, and then he went to visit some friends living out of town with whom he was to spend the night. Finding no carriage to convey him, he set out...

The years intervening between the inception of this great work and its completion had brought no little anxiety and strain connected with his arduous labours, and they had broug...