Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin Totally Explained

Everything about Ethelbert Nevin totally explained

Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin (November 25,1862 - February 17,1901) was an American pianist and composer.

biography

Nevin was born in 1862, at Vineacre, on the banks of the Ohio, a few miles from Pittsburgh. There he spent the first sixteen years of his life, and received all his schooling, most of it from his father, Robert P. Nevin, editor and proprietor of a Pittsburgh newspaper, and a contributor to many magazines. It is interesting to note that he also composed several campaign songs, among them the popular "Our Nominee," used in the day of James K. Polk's candidacy. The first grand piano ever taken across the Allegheny Mountains was carted over for Nevin's mother.
   From his earliest infancy Nevin was musically inclined, and, at the age of four, was often taken from his cradle to play for admiring visitors. To make up for the deficiency of his little legs, he used to pile cushions on the pedals so that he might manipulate them from afar.
   Nevin's father provided for his son both vocal and instrumental instruction, even taking him abroad for two years of travel and music study in Dresden under Von Böhme. Later he studied the piano for two years at Boston, under B.J. Lang, and composition under Stephen A. Emery.
   At the end of two years he went to Pittsburgh, where he gave lessons, and saved money enough to take him to Berlin. There he spent the years 1884, 1885, and 1886, placing himself in the hands of Karl Klindworth. Of him Nevin says: "To Herr Klindworth I owe everything that has come to me in my musical life. He was a devoted teacher, and his patience was tireless. His endeavor wasn't only to develop the student from a musical standpoint, but to enlarge his soul in every way. To do this, he tried to teach one to appreciate and to feel the influence of such great minds of literature as Goethe, Schiller, and Shakespeare. He used to insist that a man doesn't become a musician by practising so many hours a day at the piano, but by absorbing an influence from all the arts and all the interests of life, from architecture, painting, and even politics."
   The effect of such broad training, enjoyed rarely enough by music students, is very evident in Nevin's compositions. They are never narrow or provincial. They are the outpourings of a soul that isn't only intense in its activities, but is refined and cultivated in its expressions. This effect is seen, too, in the poems Nevin chooses to set to music; they're almost without exception verses of literary finish and value. His cosmopolitanism is also remarkable, his songs in French, German, and Italian having no trace of Yankee accent and a great fidelity to their several races.
   In 1885, Hans von Bülow incorporated the best four pupils of his friend, Klindworth, into an artist class, which he drilled personally. Nevin was one of the honored four, and appeared at the unique public Zuhören of that year, devoted exclusively to the works of Brahms, Liszt, and Raff. Among the forty or fifty studious listeners at these recitals, Frau Cosima Wagner, the violinist Joachim, and many other celebrities were frequently present.
   Nevin returned to America in 1887, and took up his residence in Boston, where he taught and played at occasional concerts.
   Eighteen hundred and ninety-two found him in Paris, where he taught, winning more pupils than here. He was especially happy in imparting to singers the proper Auffassung (grasp, interpretation, finish) of songs, and coached many American and French artists for the operatic stage. In 1893 the restless troubadour moved on to Berlin, where he devoted himself so ardently to composition that his health collapsed, and he was exiled a year to Algiers. The early months of 1895 he spent in concert tours through this country. As Klindworth said of him, "he has a touch that brings tears," and it's in interpretation rather than in bravura that he excels. He plays with that unusual combination of elegance and fervor that so individualizes his composition.
   Desirous of finding solitude and atmosphere for composition, he took up his residence in Florence, where he composed his suite, "May in Tuscany" (op. 21).
   After a year in Venice Nevin made Paris his home for a year, returning to America then, where he's since remained. The above paragraphs are excerpted from Contemporary American Composers by Rupert Hughes, Boston, 1900. At the time of his death, Nevin was married to Anne Paul and had two children. Nevin died in New Haven, Connecticut.
   He is known primarily for the composition of the extremely familiar piano piece, Narcissus from Water Scenes, May in Tuscany and the popular songs Mighty Lak' a Rose and The Rosary. Nevin was pictured on a 1940 ten cent U.S. postage stamp.

piano pieces

Lilian Polka (1874)

Op.2 Sketchbook (1888)

1 Gavotte
3 Love Song
5 Berceuse
7 Serenata
9 Valse Rhapsodie

Op.6 Three Duets (1890)

1 Valse Caprice
2 Country Dance
3 Mazurka

Op.7 Four Compositions (1890)

1 Valser Gentile
2 Slumber Song
3 Intermezzo
4 Song of the Brook

Op.13 Water Scenes (1891)

1 Dragon Fly
2 Ophelia
3 Water Nymph
4 Narcissus
5 Barcarolle

Op.16 In Arcady (1892)

1 A Shepherd's Tale
2 Shepherds All and Maidens Fair
3 Lullabye
4 Tournament

Op.18 Two Etudes (1892)

1 In the Form of a Romance
2 In the Form of a Scherzo

La Guitare (1896)

Op.21 May in Tuscany (1896)

1 Arlecchino
2 Notturno
3 Barchetta
4 Misericordia
5 Il Rusignuolo
6 La Pastorella

Op.25 A Day in Venice (1898)

1 Alba
2 Gondolieri
3 Canzone amorosa
4 Buona Notte

Op.30 En Passant (1899)

1 A Fontainebleau
2 In Dreamland
3 Napoli
4 At Home

O'er Hill and Dale (1902)

1 'Twas a Lover and His Lass
2 The Thrush
3 Love Is A-Straying, Ever Since Maying
4 The Lark Is on the Wing

songs

Bed-Time Song (1887)

Op.2 Sketchbook (1888)

2 Im Wunderschönen Monat Mai
4 Du Bist Wie Eine Blume
6 Lehn Deine Wang' an Meine Wang'
8 Oh! That We Two Were Maying
10 In Winter I Get Up at Night - Of Speckled Eggs the Birdie Sings - Dark Brown Is the River

Op.3 Three Songs (1888)

1 Deep in a Rose's Glowing Heart
2 One Spring Morning
3 Doris

Op.5 Five Songs (1889)

1 Herbstgefuhl
2 La Chanson des Lavandieres
3 'Twas April
4 Raft Song
5 Before the Daybreak

Op.9 Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (1890)

Op.12 Songs for Soprano or Tenor (1891)

1 A Summer Day
2 Beat Upon Mine, Little Heart
3 In a Bower
4 Little Boy Blue
5 At Twilight

Op.20 A Book of Songs (1893)

1 A Fair Good Morn
2 Sleep, Little Tulip
3 Every Night
4 Airly Beacon
5 When the Land was White with Moonlight
6 A Song of Love
7 Nocturne
8 Dites-moi
9 Orsola's song
10 In der Nacht

The Rosary (1898)

Op.28 Songs from Vineacre (issued separately)

1 A Necklace of Love (1899)
2 Sleeping and Dreaming (1899)
3 Mon dèsir (1899)
4 The Nightingale's Song (1899)
5 Dream-maker man (1900)
6 La lune blanche (1900)
7 Ein Heldenlied (1900)
8 Ein Liedchen (1900)

An African Love Song (1901)

Mighty Lak' a Rose (1901)

publications

Rupert Hughes, Contemporary American Composers, Boston, 1900. Vance Thompson, The Life of Ethelbert Nevin, Boston, 1913. John Tasker Howard, Ethelbert Nevin, New York, 1935.

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