1873 in music
Encyclopedia
Events
- April — The Fisk Jubilee SingersFisk Jubilee SingersThe Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for their college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditional spirituals, but included some Stephen Foster songs...
, an African American a cappella ensemble, perform before Queen Victoria during their first European tour. - August 27 — Sir Arthur SullivanArthur SullivanSir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
's oratorio The Light of the WorldThe Light of the World (Sullivan)The Light of the World is an oratorio composed in 1873 by Arthur Sullivan. Sullivan wrote the libretto with the assistance of George Grove, based on the New Testament. The story of the oratorio narrates the whole life of Christ, focusing on his deeds on Earth as preacher, healer and prophet...
(inspired by William Holman HuntWilliam Holman HuntWilliam Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...
's painting of the same name) is premièred at the Birmingham FestivalBirmingham Triennial Music FestivalThe Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival, in Birmingham, England, founded in 1784, was the longest-running classical music festival of its kind. Its last performance was in 1912.-History:...
. - Joseph ParryJoseph ParryJoseph Parry , was a Welsh composer and musician. Born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, he is best known as the composer of Myfanwy and Aberystwyth used in Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika the National anthem of South Africa.The cottage at 4 Chapel Row, Merthyr Tydfil, where Parry was born, is now open to the...
becomes Professor of Music at the University of WalesUniversity of WalesThe University of Wales was a confederal university founded in 1893. It had accredited institutions throughout Wales, and formerly accredited courses in Britain and abroad, with over 100,000 students, but in October 2011, after a number of scandals, it withdrew all accreditation, and it was...
, AberystwythAberystwythAberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....
. - Therese MaltenTherese MaltenTherese Malten was the stage name of Therese Müller , a noted German dramatic soprano.She was born at Insterburg, East Prussia, studied with Gustav Engel in Berlin, and made her début in 1873 in Dresden as Pamina in The Magic Flute. In 1882 Richard Wagner selected her as the original Kundry in...
makes her solo debut as Pamina in The Magic FluteThe Magic FluteThe Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
at Dresden.
Published popular music
- "The German Polka" by Gus Williams (vaudeville)Gus Williams (vaudeville)Gus Williams was a popular American comedian and songwriter.-Early life:Gustave Wilhelm Leweck, Jr. was born on the ninth of July, 1848, the son of a New York City German-American fur importer. While in his early teens Williams left home to seek adventure in the American West...
- "Good Sweet Ham" by Henry HartHenry Hart (musician)Henry Hart was an African American musician. He composed, led the Henry Hart Minstrels, was proclaimed a "social necessity" in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was the leader of a family musical group that Emma Lou Thornbrough called "the best-known group of colored entertainers in the state."-Early...
- "Home on the RangeHome on the Range"Home on the Range" is the state song of Kansas, U.S.Home on the Range may also refer to:* Home on the Range , a drama directed by Arthur Jacobson* Home on the Range , a Disney animated feature film...
" by Daniel Kelly & Brewster M. HigleyBrewster Higley VIBrewster Martin Higley VI was an otolaryngologist who became famous for writing "The Western Home." This poem, originally written in 1872 and published under the title "Oh, Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam" in the Smith County Pioneer in 1873, would be set to music to become the lyrics for... - "I'se Gwine Back to Dixie" by Charles A. WhiteCharles A. WhiteCharles A. White was an American organized labor lobbyist and politician.He was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Sarah Householder and Jesse Alexander White. Married Ruth Lillian Shaw from Ohio. Died October 7, 1925, Detroit, Michigan, buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Ada, Ohio.Charles left Knoxville...
- "Silver Threads Among the GoldSilver Threads Among the Gold"Silver Threads Among the Gold", first copyrighted in 1873, was an extremely popular song in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today it is a standard of barbershop quartet singing. The lyrics are by Eben E...
" w. Eben Eugene RexfordEben E. RexfordEben Eugene Rexford was an American writer and poet, and author of lyrics to popular and gospel songs.Born in Johnsburg, New York, he moved with his family to Ellington, Wisconsin in 1855. His first poems were published in the New York Ledger when Rexford was 14...
m. Hart Pease DanksHart Pease DanksHart Pease Danks was a musician who specialized in composing, singing and leading choral groups. He is best known for his 1873 composition, Silver Threads Among the Gold.-Biography:...
Classical music
- Johannes BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
— String Quartet No. 1, Variations on a Theme by Haydn - Antonín DvořákAntonín DvorákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
— String Quartet no. 5 in F; String Quartet no. 6 in A - Hermann GoetzHermann GoetzHermann Gustav Goetz was a German composer.After studying in Berlin, he moved to Switzerland in 1863. After ten years spent as a critic, pianist and conductor as well, he spent the last three years of his life composing...
— Symphony in F, op. 9 (premiered 1874. http://www.swissclassic.net/werk_goetz.htm. Some sources give 1866 for composition however.) - Giuseppe VerdiGiuseppe VerdiGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
— String Quartet in E minor
Opera
- Léo DelibesLéo DelibesClément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
— Le roi l'a ditLe roi l'a ditLe roi l'a dit is an opéra comique in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet. It is a lively comedy, remarkably requiring 14 singers – six men and eight women... - Karel MiryKarel MiryKarel Miry was a Belgian composer.He was one of the first Belgian composers to write operas to librettos in Dutch. He composed the music for De Vlaamse Leeuw the national anthem of Flanders, and for which Hippoliet van Peene wrote the lyrics...
— Muziek in t'huisgezin (opera in 1 act, libretto by N. Destanberg)
Births
- February 1 — Joseph AllardJoseph Allard (fiddler)Joseph Allard was a Canadian fiddler and composer. He occasionally recorded under the pseudonym Maxime Toupin. Allard made many popular recordings, including Reel de l'Aveugle, Reel de Chateauguay, Reel de Jacques Cartier, and Reel du voyageur...
, fiddler and composer (d. 1947) - February 13 — Feodor ChaliapinFeodor ChaliapinFeodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...
, operatic bass (d. 1938) - February 27 — Enrico Caruso, operaOperaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic tenorTenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
(d. 1921) - March 19 — Max RegerMax RegerJohann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...
, GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
composer (d. 1916) - April 1 — Sergei RachmaninoffSergei RachmaninoffSergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
, RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n composer (d. 1943) - April 18 — Jean Roger-DucasseJean Roger-DucasseJean Jules Amable Roger-Ducasse was a French composer.-Biography:Jean Roger-Ducasse studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Emile Pessard and André Gedalge, and was the star pupil and close friend of Gabriel Fauré...
, FrenchFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
composer (d. 1954) - May 1 — Harry EvansHarry Evans (composer)Harry Evans , was a Welsh musician, conductor and composer.He was born in Dowlais near Merthyr Tydfil, and learned music at home, showing such precocious talent that he was appointed organist of Gwernllwyn Congregational Church at the age of nine...
, composer (d. 1914) - June 1 — Ada JonesAda JonesAda Jones was a popular mezzo-soprano who recorded from 1905 to the early 1920s. She was born in Lancashire, England but moved with her family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of six in 1879...
, singer (d. 1922) - June 16 — Antonina NezhdanovaAntonina NezhdanovaAntonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova was a Russian lyric-coloratura soprano. An outstanding opera singer, she represented the Russian vocal school at its best....
, operatic soprano (d. 1950) - July 11 — Nat M. WillsNat M. WillsNat M. Wills , was a popular stage star, vaudeville entertainer, and recording artist at the beginning of the 20th century...
, singer, comedian, and actor (d. 1917) - August 11 — J. Rosamond JohnsonJ. Rosamond JohnsonJohn Rosamond Johnson , most often referred to as J. Rosamond Johnson, was an American composer and singer during the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson is most notable as the composer of Lift Every Voice and Sing which has come to be known in the United States as the "Black National Anthem"...
, US composer and singer - August 18 — Otto HarbachOtto HarbachOtto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies...
, lyricist (d. 1963) - September 21 — Papa Jack LainePapa Jack LaineGeorge Vital "Papa Jack" Laine was a pioneering band leader in New Orleans in the years from the Spanish-American War to World War I....
, bandleader (d. 1966) - October 14 — José SerranoJosé Serrano (composer)José Serrano Simeón was a Spanish composer of zarzuelas. He was born in Sueca, Valencia, Spain.His most famous works include La dolorosa and La canción del olvido . Serrano’s works tend to be simple popular theater but filled with dramatic emotion...
, composer (d. 1941) - October 23 — Ricardo VillaRicardo Villa (composer)Ricardo Villa was a Spanish composer. Among his compositions are two zarzuela, El Cristo de la Vega and Raimundo Lulio.-External links:...
, composer (d. 1935) - November 1 — Charles QuefCharles QuefCharles Paul Florimond Quef was a French organist and composer.He studied at the conservatory in Lille and after absolving it, he attended Paris Conservatory, where he studied together with Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne and Alexandre Guilmant...
, French organist and composer (d. 1931) - November 16 — W. C. HandyW. C. HandyWilliam Christopher Handy was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues"....
, songwriter (d. 1958) - December 14 — Joseph JongenJoseph JongenMarie-Alphonse-Nicolas-Joseph Jongen was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator.-Biography:Jongen was born in Liège. On the strength of an amazing precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven, and spent the next sixteen years...
, BelgianBelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
organist and composer (d. 1953)
Deaths
- January 3 — John Lodge EllertonJohn Lodge EllertonJohn Lodge Ellerton was an English composer of classical music.Ellerton was born in Cheshire with the name of John Lodge. According to the Dictionary of National Biography of 1889, he attended Rugby School and graduated with an MA from Brasenose College Oxford University in 1828...
, composer (b. 1801) - January 28 — Henry Hugo PiersonHenry Hugo PiersonHenry Hugh Pearson was an English composer resident from 1845 in Germany. He is also known as Edgar Mansfeld and, when living in Germany, as Heinrich Hugo Pierson. He had success in his adopted country with his operas and songs but little in his own, and his music is now rarely performed...
, composer (b. 1815) - February 14 — Charles Samuel Bovy-LysbergCharles Samuel Bovy-LysbergCharles Samuel Bovy-Lysberg was a Swiss pianist and composer.-Biography:He was born in Geneva and received his early music education there. In 1835 he went to Paris, where he studied under Frédéric Chopin and met Franz Liszt. The latter was particularly supportive and helped publish...
, composer and pianist (b.1821) - March 31 — Domenico DonzelliDomenico DonzelliDomenico Donzelli was an Italian tenor with a robust voice who enjoyed an important career in Paris, London and his native country during the 1808-1841 period.-Biography:...
, operatic tenor (b. 1790) - April 13 — Carlo CocciaCarlo CocciaCarlo Coccia was an Italian opera composer. He was known for the genre of opera semiseria.- Life and career :...
, opera composer (b. 1782) - April 19 — Pierre-Chéri LafontPierre-Chéri LafontPierre-Chéri Lafont , French actor, was born at Bordeaux.Abandoning his profession as assistant ship's doctor in the navy, he went to Paris to study singing and acting. He had some experience at a small theater, and was preparing to appear at the Opera Comique when the director of the Vaudeville...
, actor and singer (b. 1797) - May 13 — Kašpar MašekKašpar MašekKašpar Mašek or Gašpar Mašek was a Czech-Slovenian composer.The son of Vincenc Mašek, he was born and spent his early life in Prague and his later life in Slovenia, where he had a successful career as a composer for the theater. He composed operas, operettas, church music, and cantatas...
, composer (b. 1794) - July 4 — Prince Józef Michal PoniatowskiJozef Michal PoniatowskiJozef Michal Poniatowski was a Polish szlachcic, a composer and an operatic tenor. He was the nephew of the Polish general Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski...
, operatic tenor and composer (b. 1816) - July 19 — Ferdinand DavidFerdinand David (musician)Ferdinand David was a German virtuoso violinist and composer.Born in the same house in Hamburg where Felix Mendelssohn had been born the previous year, David was raised Jewish but later converted to Christianity...
, violinist and composer (b. 1810) - August 26 — Karl WilhelmKarl WilhelmKarl Wilhelm, also Carl Wilhelm was a German choral director. He is best known as the composer of the song “Die Wacht am Rhein.”-Biography:...
, choral director (b. 1815) - September 26 — Roderich Benedix, librettist and singer (b. 1811)
- October 6 — Friedrich WieckFriedrich WieckJohann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck was a noted German piano teacher, voice teacher, owner of a piano store, and music reviewer. He is remembered as the teacher of his daughter, Clara, a child prodigy who was doing international concert tours by age eleven and who later married Robert Schumann...
, music teacher and father of Clara SchumannClara SchumannClara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
(b. 1785) - October 8 — Albrecht AgtheAlbrecht AgtheWilhelm Johann Albrecht Agthe was a German music teacher.Agthe was born in Ballenstedt to Karl Christian Agthe, a court organist and composer. He studied under Michael Gotthard Fischer in Erfurt, and in 1810 became a music teacher in Leipzig and a member of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra...
, music teacher (b. 1790) - November 16 — François George-HainlFrançois George-HainlFrançois George-Hainl, born Issoire 16 November 1807, died Paris 2 June 1873 was a French cellist and conductor.His father who worked as both cobbler and amateur fiddler and gave him his first lessons. Hainl progressed so fast on the cello and worked so hard that he was soon able to join the...
, cellist, conductor and composer (b. 1807)