Clay, Frederick

1840-1889

A musician of refined and undoubted talent, who was born of English parents in Paris. His father was James Clay, a member of parliament for Hull and a famous whist player and author of a treatise on the game. Young Clay pursued his studies under Molique at Paris and later under Hauptmann at Leipsic. Later he held a post in the treasury department for a short time and also resided in London as a teacher and composer. As early as 1862 he had written a light musical work for the stage, entitled Love in a Cottage, which was received with marked favor. It was followed by a number of others, among them, Ages Ago and Happy Arcadia, with the libretto by William S. Gilbert, later the collaborator with Sir Arthur Sullivan in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Clay wrote almost exclusively for the stage and among his works are fourteen operas and operettas; the cantatas, Knights of the Cross and Lalla Rookh, in which appeared his best known composition, I'll Sing Thee Songs of Araby, and which was produced, with great success, at the Brighton Festival in 1877. Among his operas are The Merry Duchess, produced at the Royalty Theatre, in 1883, and The Golden Ring, brought out at the Alhambra Theatre in the same city the same year. In his later years, Clay built on the Sullivan models. He it was who introduced Gilbert and Sulliyan, and of him the latter said: " Clay shows a natural gift of graceful melody and a feeling for rich, harmonic coloring." He wrote many songs; and part-songs; and the music to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Among his best known songs are She Wandered Down the Mountain Side; The Sands o' Dee; and Long Ago. Clement, Franz. 1780-1842.

A great violin-player and composer, who was born in Vienna, and who studied music under his father and Kurzweil. It is said he began to play the violin at the age of four years and his debut was made in 1789, when he was nine years old, at a concert in the Imperial Opera House, Vienna. He traveled through Europe, in concert and appeared with success, in 1790, in London, where some of his concerts were conducted by Haydn and Salomon. He was solo violinist to the Emperor of Austria, in 1802, and was conductor of a theatre in Vienna from 1802 until 1811. The following year he began a series of concert tours through Germany and, Russia and, from 1821, was on tour as conductor with Catalani, the famous singer. Clement wrote violin concertos and an opera, besides several minor pieces for violin. He was considered a violinist of great refinement and held a high position on the continent as a performer. For him Beethoven wrote his great violin concerto, which is preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna, and Clement was the first to play it in public. He published twenty-five concertinos, six concertos, and twelve studies for the violin; three overtures for orchestra; an opera and the music for a melodrama, besides numerous smaller pieces. His music is never heard today.