United States or Hong Kong ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


In Munich he was acclaimed "a second Mozart." In Strassburg and Stuttgart he had great success. Arrived in Paris, father and son visited the Conservatoire at once, for it would have been a fine thing for the boy to study there for a time, as it was the best known school for counterpoint and composition.

In his ninth year he was placed under the instruction of Costa, first violoncellist of Genoa; then had lessons of Rolla, a famous performer and composer; and finally studied counterpoint at Parma under Ghiretti and the celebrated maestro Paer.

Werner, his musical chief in his next station, had the sense to see that this continuous melody was the thing aimed at, and because Haydn placed counterpoint in a subsidiary condition he called him a "charlatan." Poor man, had his sense pierced a little deeper! For Haydn was after Bach and Handel and Mozart one of the finest masters of counterpoint who have lived.

J. A. Fuller Maitland, then musical critic of the Times; he introduced us to that learned musician William Smith Rockstro, under whom we studied medieval counterpoint while composing Ulysses.

Technically there is no advance or change in Lohengrin: the counterpoint and interweaving of themes of Tristan and the Mastersingers were to come a few years later. Indeed, there is less of Wagner the contrapuntal virtuoso in Lohengrin than in Tannhäuser. In the music, as in the drama, the second act presents a total contrast to the first. The music of the first is throughout full of sunlight.

In the overture, one of the finest of his instrumental compositions, he returned to a form that had not been in use since the time of Hasse and Graum; in the scene with the two men in armor he made use of a German chorale sung in octaves as a canto firmo, with counterpoint in the orchestra a recondite idea which it is difficult to imagine him inventing for this opera.

The counterpoint here is the mere joyous ringing of many strains all about. Against all rules comes a new chorusing paean on the theme of Allegretto, led by stentorian basses, together with an enchanting after-strain, which we might have remarked before. And still another quarter, long hushed, is heard anew, as a voice sounds a faint reminder of the hymn of the first Allegro.

Her parents did not know what had become of her. Afterwards she studied counterpoint and harmony with Rubenstein in St. Petersburg, and also with Von Bulow in Leipsic. But she had given up music for journalism. Her specialty was musical criticism, to which, having been thrown a good deal with artists, she had added art criticism.

Gnekker and the young ladies talk of fugues, of counterpoint, of singers and pianists, of Bach and Brahms, while my wife, afraid of their suspecting her of ignorance of music, smiles to them sympathetically and mutters: "That's exquisite... really! You don't say so!..." Gnekker eats with solid dignity, jests with solid dignity, and condescendingly listens to the remarks of the young ladies.

His first Paris opera was the "Famille Suisse" , which had a successful run. Several other operas followed, besides some excellent pieces of chamber music which secured him the professorship of the piano in the Conservatory. He also took lessons at this time of Cherubini in counterpoint, and in 1803 brought out a very successful work, "Ma Tante Aurore." We next hear of him in St.