Great Italian and French Composers

Excerpt

The task of compressing into one small volume suitable sketches of the more famous Italian and French composers has been, in view of the extent of the field and the wealth of material, a somewhat embarrassing one, especially as the purpose was to make the sketches of interest to the general music-loving public, and not merely to the critic and the scholar. The plan pursued has been to devote the bulk of space to composers of the higher rank, and to pass over those less known with such brief mention as sufficed to outline their lives and fix their place in the history of music. In gathering the facts embodied in these musical sketches, the author acknowledges his obligations to the following works: Hullah's "History of Modern Music"; Fétis's "Biographie Universelle des Musiciens"; Clementi's "Biographie des Musiciens"; Hogarth's "History of the Opera"; Sutherland Edwards's "History of the Opera"; Schlüter's "History of Music"; Chorley's "Thirty Years' Musical Reminiscences"; Stendhalls "Vie de Rossini"; Bellasys's "Memorials of Cherubini"; Grove's "Musical Dictionary"; Crowest's "Musical Anecdotes"; and the various articles in the standard cyclopædias.