MEYERBEER, JAKOB. - Musician, b. in Berlin on Sept. 23, 1791, d. in Paris on May 2, 1864. He added his surname Beer to that of a relative, Mayer, who had left him heir to a conspicuous fortune. He studied music with Lauska and Muzio Clementi and perfected his studies in Darmstadt with Abbot Vogler.
His first work was the oratorio God and Nature, which procured for him the title of director of the court chapel. There followed The Vow of Jephthah and Abimelech, which had excellent success. After a brief stay in Vienna, in 1815 he came to Italy, where he resided for some years and composed many operas reminiscent of the Rossinian style. The great success obtained by The Crusader procured for him universal fame. The death of his father, of two children and of some dear friends distracted him from the theater and concentrated him in the field of sacred music, where he made profound studies and composed 12 psalms for two choirs, 7 sacred cantatas on texts by Klopstock, some motets, a grandiose Hymn to God and many melodies. In 1830 in Paris he returned to the theater and wrote his masterpieces Robert the Devil, The Huguenots, The African Woman, The Prophet, Dinorah, etc., which were followed by a Pater noster and other sacred compositions.
A man of the theater and a seeker of success, M. had excellent artistic qualities and a most skillful technique, but a pathos that was too melodramatic and superficial pervades all his work, which has the taste and the defects of its time.
Bibliography5 works
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