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Fifield, Christopher, Max Bruch: His Life and Works, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, U.K.:
Boydell, 2005).
Sound Recording
Max Bruch, Septet, Consortium Classicum. Orfeo C167881A (n.d.).
Georges Bizet (25 Oct. 1838 3 Jun. 1875)
Bizet s father was a singing teacher and his mother also had exceptional musical
ability, thus giving Bizet an ideal environment in which to develop as a musi-
cian. He made such good progress that he was able to enroll at the Paris Con-
servatoire at the age of nine, and he quickly gained a reputation as a fine pianist.
His emergence as a composer was somewhat slower, but his first known works
date from the early 1850s. These include more than a dozen piano pieces from
the period 1850 54, a lost cantata, and three songs that were actually published
as early as 1854: La foi, l espérance et la charité, La rose et l abeille, and
Petite Marguerite. From this time onward he progressed extremely rapidly,
and it was probably when he was still only sixteen in 1855 that he completed his
first opera, La maison du docteur, and an overture in A. His famous symphony in
Composers Born between 1801 and 1850 147
C was written in November that year, and after remaining unknown until 1935,
it quickly became one of the most celebrated works written by any seventeen-
year-old. Works (based on communication from Hugh Macdonald):
Barcarolle and vocalize, 1850
Two caprices originals, May and Nov. 1851
Nine short piano pieces, c. 1852 53
Cantata (lost), 1854
Fugues, 1854
Nocturne in F, 1854
Grande valse de concert, 1854
Three songs ( La foi, l espérance et la charité, La rose et l abeille, and
Petite Marguerite ), 1854
Bizet, Georges, Oeuvres pour le piano, ed. Michel Poupet (Paris: Mario Bois, 1984).
Sound Recording
Piano works in Georges Bizet, Complete Piano Music, Setrak. Harmonia Mundi HMA
190 5233/4 (1996).
Josef Rheinberger (17 Mar. 1839 25 Nov. 1901)
Although Rheinberger s parents were not professional musicians, he began
learning the piano at the age of five, and by the age of seven he had become
organist in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, and was starting to compose. The most no-
table of his very early works is a three-part mass with organ accompaniment,
but, although he quickly became quite a prolific composer, he published noth-
ing until 1859. Many of his early works appear to be lost, while others survive
in unpublished manuscripts in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, still
in need of exploration. On 1 August 1853 he began compiling an index of all
new compositions, but none of the early ones on the list have appeared in the
Rheinberger complete edition and most of them have never been published
(for a catalogue of his works, see Irmen [1974]).
Today he is remembered mainly as a composer of organ music, having
written much for the instrument during his lifetime, and this was already true
while he was still a child. His earliest known organ compositions are three
fugues, dated 1, 2, and 3 December 1851, which have been published as Nos.
15, 6, and 25 respectively in a recent volume edited by Martin Weyer. The
fact that they were composed on consecutive days shows that Rheinberger
was already at the age of twelve capable of composing a fugue a day; he may
even have been doing so regularly, with these three being just the tip of a large
iceberg. In style they are real textbook fugues, much influenced by Bach and
148 Chapter 8
his disciples, and showing great contrapuntal assurance throughout. Although
music by child composers often shows limited variety of texture and little evi-
dence of contrapuntal skill, Rheinberger s fugues clearly do not fit this pattern,
for they show considerable resourcefulness in varying the basically four-part
textures, and the part-writing is both harmonically and melodically secure.
The fugues also display something of the rich but controlled chromaticism that
is often evident in his later works. Indeed these fugues provide a clear foretaste
of his later works, which continued to exhibit his great fluency, contrapuntal
skill, and generally academic approach, as well as a conservatism that is typical
of the later works of many notable child composers, displaying no great inven-
tion or originality. There is in these later works little evidence of influence by
the more progressive composers of his day.
Irmen, Hans-Josef, Thematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke Gabriel Josef Rhein-
bergers (Regensburg, Germany: Gustav Bosse, 1974).
Weyer, Martin, ed., Easy Organ Pieces from the 19th Century (Kassel, Germany: Bären-
reiter, 2000).
Sound Recording
Early organ works in Josef Rheinberger, Complete Organ Works, vol. 1, Rudolf Innig.
Dabringhaus und Grimm MDG 317 0891-2 (1999).
Arthur Sullivan (13 May 1842 22 Nov. 1900)
Sullivan s earliest significant musical experiences were at Sandhurst, where
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