Scan 123
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians ed. by J. A. Fuller Maitland, 1907
18 lines. Read by computer on 5 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1that year, and published Feb. 28, 1823, by Steiner. It is dedicated 'to the immortal Goethe.' The reverse of the title-page contains three lines from Voss's translation of the Odyssey (viii. 479), thus rendered by Lang and Butcher:—
3For from all men on earth minstrels get their mood of honour and worship; inasmuch as the muse teacheth them the paths of song, and loveth the tribe of minstrels.
5A letter from Beethoven to the publisher, dated June 12, and apparently belonging to the year 1824, calls it a cantata, and asks for the loan of the score, that he 'might write a kind of overture to it.' This intention does not appear to have been carried out.
72. By Mendelssohn, for orchestra only. Written in the summer of 1828, first performed at Berlin, Dec. 1, 1832, remodelled and 'made thirty times as good as before,' and published as op. 27 and No. 3 of his Concert Overtures in 1834. We learn from a passage in his sister's diary1 that Mendelssohn wished to avoid the form of an introduction and overture, and to throw his work into two companion pictures.
9MEERTS, LAMBERT JOSEPH, distinguished violinist and composer for his instrument, born at Brussels, Jan. 6, 1800; died there, May 12, 1863. Pupil of Lafont, Habeneck, and Baillot. At the age of sixteen he became a member of the theatre orchestra in Antwerp. After completing his studies in Paris, he returned to Brussels and established himself as a teacher and performer. In 1835 he was appointed professor of the violin at the Brussels Conservatoire. He wrote several instructive works for the violin, including a series of duets for two violins, each study being founded on a particular rhythm extracted from one of Beethoven's symphonies. (A. Mason Clarke's Fiddlers Ancient and Modern, London, 1896.) E. H.-A.
11MEFISTOFELE. See FAUST (iii.), vol. ii. p. 16.
13MEHLIG, ANNA, a distinguished pianist, was born at Stuttgart, July 11, 1846. She received her musical education at the Conservatorium of her native town, and afterwards spent a year at Weimar studying under Liszt. In 1866 she made her first appearance in England, playing Hummel's Concerto in B Minor at the Philharmonic on April 30. She revisited England each year till 1869 inclusive, playing regularly at the Philharmonic and Crystal Palace and other concerts. She then took a long tour in America, where she met with great success. In 1875 she reappeared in England, playing Chopin's E minor Concerto at the Crystal Palace on Oct. 9, and paid annual visits to London for many years. Her répertoire is large, her power of execution remarkable, and her style is full of refinement and poetry. Since her marriage with Herr Falk of Antwerp she has lived in that city.
15G.
17MÉHUL, ÉTIENNE HENRI (or ÉTIENNE-NICOLAS), born June 22, 1763, at Givet in the Ardennes, son of a cook, who was too poor to give him much education. Even in childhood he showed a passion for music, and a remarkable perseverance in overcoming obstacles, and at ten was appointed organist to the convent of the Récollets at Givet. Having learned all that his master, a poor blind organist, could teach him, he was thrown on his own resources, until the arrival, at the neighbouring convent of Lavaldieu, of a new organist, Wilhelm Hauser, whose playing had attracted the attention of the Abbot Lissoir, when visiting the Abbey of Scheussenried in Swabia. The monks of Lavaldieu, wishing to make music a special feature in their services, had a good organ, and the playing of Hauser, who was a sound and good musician, caused quite an excitement in that secluded corner of the Ardennes. Lavaldieu was several leagues from Givet, but Méhul often walked over to hear him; and at length, with the consent of his father, was admitted into the convent, and became the most diligent, as he was the most gifted, of the eight pupils under Hauser's training. At fourteen he became deputy-organist; and a distinguished amateur who heard him play was so struck by his evident power of imagination, that he determined to take him to Paris, and in 1778 Méhul bade farewell to the flowers he loved to cultivate, and the instructor who had put him in the way to become a great musician. On his arrival in Paris he at once went to Edelmann for instruction in pianoforte-playing and composition. To earn his bread he gave lessons, and composed two sonatas (1781) which bear no traces of a master mind; but this was not the line in which he was destined to distinction. In 1779 he was present at the first performance of 'Iphigénie en Tauride,' and the effect produced on one with his cultivated intellect, his love of the beautiful, and passionate though reserved nature, was immense. He expressed his admiration to Gluck himself, who received the young enthusiast graciously, gave him valuable advice, and undertook his instruction in the philosophical and poetical parts of music. Encouraged by the success of a cantata with orchestra composed to one of Rousseau's sacred odes, and produced at the Concert Spirituel in March 1782, he might have gone on writing church music, had not Gluck shown him his true vocation, and directed his attention to the stage. Solely for practice, he composed, one after another, three operas, 'Psyché et l'Amour,' pastoral by Voisenon previously set by Sain Amans; 'Anacréon,' the third act of a ballet by Bernard and Rameau, produced in 1757 as 'Les Surprises de l'Amour'; and 'Lausus et Lydie,' three acts, to a libretto adapted by Valadier from Marmontel. These unpublishe
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.