MEYERBEER, JAKOB

MEYERBEER, JAKOB. — Musician, born in Berlin on 23 September 1791, died in Paris on 2 May 1864. He added the surname Beer to his own, in honor of a relative named Mayer who had left him a considerable inheritance. He studied music with Lauska and Muzio Clementi and furthered his studies in Darmstadt with Abbé Vogler.

His first work was the oratorio God and Nature, which earned him the title of director of the court chapel. This was followed by The Vow of Jephthah and Abimelech, which met with excellent success. After a brief stay in Vienna, in 1815 he came to Italy, where he remained for several years and composed many operas influenced by the Rossinian style. The great success achieved by The Crusader brought him universal fame. The death

of his father, two children, and several dear friends diverted him from the theater and focused his attention on sacred music, in which field he undertook profound studies and composed 12 psalms for two choirs, 7 sacred cantatas to texts by Klopatok, several motets, a grand Hymn to God, and many melodies. In 1830 he returned to the theater in Paris and wrote his masterpieces Robert the Devil, The Huguenots, L'Africaine, The Prophet, Dinorah, etc., followed by a Pater noster and other sacred compositions.

A man of the theater and a seeker of success, M. possessed excellent artistic qualities and highly accomplished technique, but an excessively melodramatic and superficial pathos pervades his entire oeuvre, which reflects the tastes and defects of the period.