William Vincent Wallace

William Vincent Wallace ( born March 11, 1812 in Waterford, Ireland, † October 12, 1865 in Sauveterre -de- Comminges, Haute- Garonne, France) was a British composer and musician.

Life

William Wallace was the son of a Scottish military bandmaster, and grew up in Ireland Ballina. When he moved to Dublin in 1823, he had already practiced a variety of instruments in his father's band. In Dublin, he learned to play the piano, played in the second violin at the Theatre Royal and was also organist in the Assumption Cathedral of Thurles. In 1831 he married, converted to Catholicism and it changed his first name to Vincent. At 22, he performed his first violin concerto. Together with his wife, child, sister and a brother he emigrated in 1835 to Australia, where she founded the first music school together in Sydney on the continent. Wallace got into debt, broke up in 1838 by his family and began an unsettled life as a musician, which initially led him to South America. In 1841 he lived in Mexico City. In New York, he was involved in the 1842 founding of the New York Philharmonic Society. He then worked in Germany and 1844 in the Netherlands. On November 15, 1845 his opera Maritana premiered at Drury Lane Theatre in London. At this and other London venues he brought five other operas premiered, the Loreley opera Lurline. Five opera remained unperformed. Wallace has over 50 vocal pieces composed and about seventy pieces of chamber music. Many of his arias published as a separate print editions.

In 1850 he married in the U.S., the pianist Helene Stoepel, with whom he had two children. He acquired U.S. citizenship, but it dropped again from 1858 mainly in Europe. For health reasons he moved with his wife in the Pyrenees, where he died. He was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. Helen Wallace died in 1885 in New York.

Wallace was one of the first composers who integrated elements of South American folk music in the Western art music. He is considered, along with the also -forgotten MW Balfe, composer of English as the most successful operas of the 19th century.

Operas

  • Maritana, libretto by Edward Fitzball: the premiere of Drury Lane Theatre, 1845
  • Lurline, Edward Fitzball, Covent Garden, 1859
  • Love's Triumph, James Planché, Covent Garden, 1862
  • The Desert Flower, Augustus Glossop Harris / Thomas John Williams, Covent Garden, 1863
Ballina, County Mayo Theatre Royal Drury Lane Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart Bryn Mawr College WorldCat Australian Dictionary of Biography Integrated Authority File
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