Giacomo Meyerbeer
Considered the most famous opera composer of the 19th century, Meyerbeer is by
contrast much less performed today, and his works are known only to insiders.
Born on September 5, 1791 in Tasdorf, near Berlin (then in Prussia), Jakob
Liebmann Meyer Beer was the son of a sugar merchant and a wealthy Jewish
heiress, whose father made his fortune running the kingdom's lottery. The young
man studied piano with Franz Lauska, a pupil of Muzio Clementi, who himself came
to give lessons to the precociously gifted musician, giving his first concert at
the age of ten. He then studied composi...
