Charles Neustedt: Primavera (Idylle #4), Op.122
Phillip Sear plays an idyll from 1877 by the French composer and piano teacher Charles Neustedt'
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The French composer Charles Neustedt (1838-1908) seems to have written a few popular gavottes, tyroliennes and operatic fantasies, but I cannot find much information on his life. Probably born in Saumur, he was a sometime 'professor' at the Couvent des Oiseaux and College Rollin. The first of these institutions was a famous Parisian gaol of the French revolution, which was turned into a convent in 1824. The second was a private college in the Rue Lhomond. I guess he may have been what we would now call a peripatetic music teacher. He was obviously well regarded, as I have seen several works by other composers dedicated to him. In 1879, he took over the Flaxland piano manufacturing business for a few years. Neustedt wrote several idylls, which come across to me as a mixture of Mendelssohn and bel canto. This piece was dedicated to the wife of Willem ten Have (1831 — 1924), the famous Dutch violinist and composer. As both this and the first Idylle were seemingly dedicated to Dutch people, one wonders if Neustedt had Dutch links, or indeed was of Dutch birth.
Thumnail credit (my colourization): Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. (1819). Ballo I Titani, atto I. Deliziosa primavera. Ma in primavera eterna, ch'ora s'asconde e verna, rise di luce, e di sereno il cielo; Tasso. Stucchi inc. Carol Lose acq. [after a set design by Sanquirico] Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/it...
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Played by Phillip Sear
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