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Browse piano sheets by Ethelbert Nevin on Zen Virtual Piano. Ethelbert Nevin was a pianist and composer whose mother, Elizabeth Duncan Oliphant, was also a pianist. The first grand piano ever taken across the Allegheny Mountains was carted over for her. By age four Nevin was playing the piano, with cushions stacked on the pedals so he could reach them. His father paid for vocal and instrumental instruction alike. Later, in Boston, he took two years of piano lessons from Benjamin Johnson Lang and studied composition with Stephen A. Emery. A pianist mother and instruction from his father may suggest that music was part of family life. Nevin said of Herr Klindworth: “To Herr Klindworth I owe everything that has come to me in my musical life.” Klindworth said of Nevin that “he has a touch that brings tears.” Nevin returned to America in 1887 and took up residence in Boston, where he taught and played at occasional concerts. His remark that he owed everything to Herr Klindworth and his own teaching of singing in Paris may suggest a musician who both received and gave instruction. Nevin spent 1892 in Paris, teaching singing and coaching many American and French artists for the operatic stage. Berlin was his next stop, in 1893. Composition work there was so intense that his health collapsed, and a year in Algiers followed. Britannica notes that his early songs on English and German texts were influenced by Schubert and Schumann. Does Britannica’s note that Schubert and Schumann influenced his early songs, set beside his two years of Boston piano lessons with Benjamin Johnson Lang, hint at a musician who met several models and teachers? Britannica names Narcissus (1891), from the Water Scenes, as Nevin’s best known piano piece, and names “Rosary” (1898) and “Mighty lak’ a Rose” (1900) among his later pieces in a lighter style. The Greek myth of Narcissus came back to the composer. After he reread it, the music arrived quickly, with a first draft written at once and revised once he had broken for dinner. Narcissus has a simple, sweet structure that flows easily, and it is a standard piece used in piano teaching. Klindworth’s remark about a touch that brings tears and the simple, sweet structure of Narcissus may point to a gentle quality in both Nevin’s playing and his writing.
Browse piano sheets by Ethelbert Nevin on Zen Virtual Piano.
Ethelbert Nevin was a pianist and composer whose mother, Elizabeth Duncan Oliphant, was also a pianist. The first grand piano ever taken across the Allegheny Mountains was carted over for her. By age four Nevin was playing the piano, with cushions stacked on the pedals so he could reach them. His father paid for vocal and instrumental instruction alike. Later, in Boston, he took two years of piano lessons from Benjamin Johnson Lang and studied composition with Stephen A. Emery. A pianist mother and instruction from his father may suggest that music was part of family life.
Nevin said of Herr Klindworth: “To Herr Klindworth I owe everything that has come to me in my musical life.” Klindworth said of Nevin that “he has a touch that brings tears.” Nevin returned to America in 1887 and took up residence in Boston, where he taught and played at occasional concerts. His remark that he owed everything to Herr Klindworth and his own teaching of singing in Paris may suggest a musician who both received and gave instruction.
Nevin spent 1892 in Paris, teaching singing and coaching many American and French artists for the operatic stage. Berlin was his next stop, in 1893. Composition work there was so intense that his health collapsed, and a year in Algiers followed. Britannica notes that his early songs on English and German texts were influenced by Schubert and Schumann. Does Britannica’s note that Schubert and Schumann influenced his early songs, set beside his two years of Boston piano lessons with Benjamin Johnson Lang, hint at a musician who met several models and teachers?
Britannica names Narcissus (1891), from the Water Scenes, as Nevin’s best known piano piece, and names “Rosary” (1898) and “Mighty lak’ a Rose” (1900) among his later pieces in a lighter style. The Greek myth of Narcissus came back to the composer. After he reread it, the music arrived quickly, with a first draft written at once and revised once he had broken for dinner. Narcissus has a simple, sweet structure that flows easily, and it is a standard piece used in piano teaching. Klindworth’s remark about a touch that brings tears and the simple, sweet structure of Narcissus may point to a gentle quality in both Nevin’s playing and his writing.
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Ethelbert Nevin began playing the piano by the age of four, and his father provided both vocal and instrumental instruction. His mother, Elizabeth Duncan Oliphant, was a pianist.
In Boston, Ethelbert Nevin took two years of piano lessons from Benjamin Johnson Lang and studied composition with Stephen A. Emery, and he said he owed everything in his musical life to Herr Klindworth.
Ethelbert Nevin went to Paris in 1892, where he taught singing, and to Berlin in 1893, where his health collapsed from hard work at composition. He then spent a year in Algiers.
Ethelbert Nevin’s best known piano piece is Narcissus (1891), from the Water Scenes, which is a standard piece used in piano teaching.