OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Neukomm, Sigismund

From volume 2 of the work.
​NEUKOMM, Sigismund, Chevalier, born at Salzburg, July 10, 1778, first learned music from Weissauer and from Michael Haydn, who in 1798 sent him to his brother at Vienna. He studied music with Joseph Haydn for some years, and was treated by him more as a son than a pupil. His first compositions appeared in 1808, and in 1806 he went viâ Sweden to St. Petersburg, where he became Capellmeister, and director of the Emperor's German theatre. He returned to Vienna just in time to close the eyes of Haydn, and shortly after took up his residence in Paris, and there lived on terms of intimacy with Grétry, Cherubini, Cuvier, and other eminent men, and especially with Talleyrand, in whose establishment he succeeded Dussek as pianist. Their friendship survived the downfall of the Empire, and he accompanied Talleyrand to the Congress of Vienna. There he composed a Requiem for Louis XVI, which was performed at St. Stephen's before a crowd of the greatest notabilities, and for which in 1815 Louis XVIII made him Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, with letters of nobility. In 1816 he went in the suite of the Duke of Luxemburg to Rio Janeiro, and remained there as maître de chapelle to Dom Pedro till the revolution of 1821 drove that monarch, and Neukomm with him, back to Lisbon. Having resigned his pension, he returned to Talleyrand, whom he accompanied on several of his grand tours. He came to London in the same year with Mendelssohn (1829), and they met at the house of Moscheles, with whom Neukomm remained on terms of great friendship and mutual esteem. The last 20 years of his life he divided between England and France, and died in Paris April 3, 1858. In England his intelligence and cultivation gave him a high position. His Symphony in E♭ was played by the Philharmonic, March 21, 1831, and many other pieces at various times. His oratorio 'Mount Sinai,' was repeatedly performed in London, and at Worcester, Derby, etc., and he wrote his oratorio 'David' specially for the Birmingham Festival of 1834, where so highly was he prized as to be familiarly called 'the King ofBrummagem.' In fact his two songs 'Napoleon's Midnight Review' and 'The Sea,' both to Barry Cornwall's words, may be said to have made him for some months the most popular person in England. But there were no lasting qualities in his longer pieces, and Mendelssohn's arrival at Birmingham in 1837 eclipsed Neukomm's fame, and even caused him to be as unjustly depreciated as he had before been unduly extolled. This reverse he bore with a philosophy which elicited Mendelssohn's warmest expressions.
[ F. G. ]
* ↑ Mendelssohn's Letters, ii. 124.
* ↑ Ib. ii. 124, 132.
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Nevada, Emma

​NEVADA, Emma. See Wixom, vol. iv. p. 477.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Mæroe

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MÆROE,
A woman famed among the ancients for her extraordinary learning, and particularly remembered for her hymn to Neptune. She was a native of Greece; but her birth-place is not known.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Muloch, Diana Maria

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MULOCH, DIANA MARIA,
Is known as the author of several works, published anonymously, which, if they have not the elements of extensive popularity, possess great attractions to readers of cultivated mind and intellect. This lady was born at Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, in 1826, and at the age of twenty-three published her first novel, "The Ogilvies," a charming tale, in spite of its occasional colloquial simplicity, and tendency to give too great a prominence to the expression of feelings and emotions; it is rich in both pathos and humour, and shews in the writer an earnestness of purpose, and power and depth of thought quite remarkable in the first work of a young writer. "Olive," another novel, which appeared in 1850, gives evidence of intellectual growth; this was followed, in 1851, by the "Head of the Family, a story of middle class Scottish life." Next came a very graceful and imaginative fairy tale, called "Alice Learmont," and after that "Agatha's Husband;" again a novel. "Avillion, and other Tales," in three volumes, and several books for young people, including "Rhoda's Lessons," "Cola Monti," "A Hero," "The Little Lychetts," and "Bread upon the Waters," are also the produce of Miss Muloch's pen; besides fugitive tales and poems contributed to periodicals.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Neal, Alice Bradley

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NEAL, ALICE BRADLEY,
Was born in Hudson, New York, and was educated chiefly at a seminary for young ladies, in New Hampshire. In 1846, she was married to Mr. Joseph C. Neal, of Philadelphia, at that time editor of "Neal's Saturday Gazette," a man highly esteemed for his intellectual abilities, and warmly beloved for his personal qualities. Being left a widow a few months after her marriage, Mrs. Neal, although very young, was entrusted with the editorship of her husband's paper, which she has since conducted, in connection with Mr. Peterson, with remarkable ability, "The Saturday Gazette" continuing one of the most popular weekly papers of the city. She is principally known, as yet, as a contributor of tales and poems to the different periodicals of the day. In 1860, some of her writings were collected into one volume, under the title of "The Gossips of Rivertown; with Sketches in Prose and Verse." Mrs. Neal seems to have been endowed by nature with peculiar abilities for the sphere in which she has, by Providence, been placed. She began to write when quite a child; and in all her works she shows great facility in the use of her pen, a keen appreciation of the beautiful, and an almost intuitive penetration into the half-concealed springs that actuate the intercourse of society. Yet it is as a poetess, rather than a prose writer, that she will be chiefly admired, if we may ​judge of the ripened fruit by the fair blossoms of the early spring. The easy and harmonious flow of her verses, and the tenderness and feeling expressed in them, will make them always read and admired. In that most important literary department, writing books which children love to read and gain wisdom from reading, Mrs. Neal excels; her two charming little books, "Helen Morton's Trial" and "Pictures from the Bible," are deservedly popular.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Motte, Rebecca

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MOTTE, REBECCA,
Daughter of Robert Brewton, an English gentleman, who had emigrated to South Carolina, was born in 1738, in Charleston. When about twenty, she married Mr. Jacob Motte, who died soon after the commencement of the revolutionary war. Captain McPherson, of the British army, who was in command of the garrison at Fort Motte, had taken possession of the large new house of Mrs. Motte, and fortified it, so that it was almost impregnable. Mrs. Motte herself had been obliged to remove to an old farm-house In the vicinity. In order to dislodge the garrison before succours should arrive, Generals Marion and Lee, who were commanding the American forces there, could devise no means but burning the mansion. This they were very reluctant to do, but Mrs. Motte willingly assented to the proposal, and presented, herself, ​a bow and its apparatus, which had been imported from India, and was prepared to carry combustible matter.
Mrs. Ellet, in her "Women of the American Revolution," gives a good account of this heroine; the following extract refers to another portion of her history, and is important, as illustrating her high sense of honour, her energy, and patient, self-denying perseverance. Her husband, in consequence of the difficulties and distresses growing out of the American war for independence, became embarrassed in his business; and after his death, and termination of the war, it was found impossible to satisfy these claims:—
"The widow, however, considered the honour of her deceased husband involved in the responsibilities he had assumed. She determined to devote the remainder of her life to the honourable task of paying the debts. Her friends and connexions, whose acquaintance with her affairs gave weight to their judgment, warned her of the apparent hopelessness of such an effort. But, steadfast in the principles that governed all her conduct, she persevered. Living in an humble dwelling, and relinquishing many of her habitual comforts, she devoted herself with such zeal, untiring industry, and indomitable resolution, to the attainment of her object, that her success triumphed over every difficulty, and exceeded the expectations of all who had discouraged her. She not only paid her husband's debts to the full, but secured for her children and descendants a handsome and unencumbered estate. Such an example of perseverance under adverse circumstances, for the accomplishment of a high and noble purpose, exhibits in yet brighter colours the heroism that shone in her country's days of peril!"
Mrs. Motte died in 1815, at her plantation on the Santee.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Muratori, Teresa

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MURATORI, TERESA,
Was born at Bologna, in 1662. She early evinced a taste for the fine arts, particularly music and drawing. She was the daughter ​of a physician, and successively the scholar of Eniilio Taruffl, Lorenzo Pasinelli, and Giovanni Gniseppe dal Sole. She composed many works for the chnrches of Bologna, the most admirable of which are, "A Dead Child restored to Life," "The Disbelief of St Thomas," and "The Annunciation." She died in 1708.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Motteville, Frances Bertrand de

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MOTTEVILLE, FRANCES BERTRAND DE,
Was born in Normandy, in 1615. Her wit and agreeable manners recommended her to Anne of Austria, Regent of France, who kept her constantly near her. The jealousy of Cardinal Richelieu, however, caused her disgrace, and she retired, with her mother, to Normandy, where she married Nicolas Langlois, Lord de Motteville, an old man, who died two years after. On the death of Richelieu, Anne of Austria recalled her to court. Here she employed herself in writing memoirs of Anne of Austria, giving an apparently correct account of the minority of Louis the Fourteenth, and the interior of a court. She died at Paris, in 1689, aged seventy-five.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Myrtis

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MYRTIS,
A Greek woman, distinguished for her poetical talents. She lived about B.C. 500, and instructed the celebrated Corinna in the art of versification. Pindar also is said to have been one of her pupils.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Méteyard, Eliza

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METEYARD, ELIZA,
Better known by her signature of "Silverpen," writes chiefly for the London periodicals. She was a favoured contributor to "Eliza Cook's Journal," and has written for some of the American Magazines. Miss Méteyard is of the progressive school, but has none of the gloom or misanthrophy which those whose wishes to do good outrun their power, often display. She is cheerful, and strives to improve the habits and minds of the poor, as an effective means of bettering their physical condition. This is a department of benevolence too often overlooked; and one which the tender and ​refined soul of woman is best qualified to advance. Miss Méteyard has the true sense of the beautiful in nature and art, and feels it may bless the poor as well as the rich. She deserves much praise for her efforts in the cause of reform.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Naomi

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NAOMI,
And her husband Elimelech, went to the land of Moab, because of a famine in Canaan. After about ten years, her husband and two sons died, leaving no children. Naomi then returned with Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law, to her own country, poor and humble. Yet it speaks well for the character and consistency of Naomi, that she so thoroughly won the love and respect of her daughters-in-law. And not only this, but she must have convinced them, by the sanctity of her daily life, that the Lord whom she worshipped was the true God. Her name, Naomi, signifies beauty; and we feel, when reading her story, that, in its highest sense, she deserves to be thus characterized.
After Ruth married Boaz, which event was brought about, humanely speaking, by Naomi's wise counsel, she appears to have lived with them; and she look their first-born son as her own, "laid him in her bosom, and became nurse to him." This child was Obed, the grandfather of David. Well might the race be advanced which had such a nurse and instructress. These events occurred about 1312, B.C.
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Hadeloga

​St. Hadeloga, Feb. 2 (Adaloja, Adeloja, Adelheid, Adelaide, Hadelaugis, Halloie, Hruadlauoa, Rothlauga, etc.), V. 8th century. Founder and abbess of Kitzingen (Cuccingum), in Franconia, in the diocese of Wurtzburg.
Bollandus inclines to the opinion that she was the daughter of Pepin, of Herstal, who was mayor of the palace, and virtually, though not actually, king of the Franks. In that case, she was great-niece to St. Gertrude, of Nivelle. Some historians make her daughter of Charles Martel; others of Pepin the Short, father of Charlemagne.
Hadeloga was born and brought up at Schwanberg, the residence of her father, in Franconia. As she was very beautiful, and renowned for her piety, amiability, and wisdom, she had many suitors—kings, sons of kings, and nobles from England, Hungary, Greece, and other countries; but she found some excuse for refusing every one of them, preferring a celibate religious life. Her father was very angry, and she became more popular at his court from the meekness and cheerfulness with which she bore his unkindness. Then the devil put it into the king's heart to put an evil construction on the favour with which Hadeloga treated his chaplain, and he sent one of his guards to tell the priest that if he did not take her away, he would turn them both ignominiously out-of-doors next day. So they went away, and coming to a wood, the priest made a clearing, and there they built a monastery, where they were joined by a few religious persons, and led a holy life under the rule of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. The king, hearing the flame of his daughter's sanctity, repented of his harshness, and gave extensive estates to the institution over which she presided. The chaplain, in the mean time, went to Jerusalem, and died there; and some time afterwards he appeared in a dream to the king, warning him of his approaching death, and exhorting him, as he wished to save his soul, to repent of his injurious suspicions against St. Hadeloga and himself. The king accordingly visited his daughter, and begged her forgiveness and her prayers, endowing the convent richly. From that time it increased greatly in power and in fame of sanctity. St. Hadeloga built a stone bridge over the river Main at Kitzingen, which is still pointed out, although superseded for use by a modern one. St. Hadeloga's bridge is said to have been thirty-two years in building.
Tritheim supposes her to be the Abbess Thecla (19), whom Boniface brought from England. AA.SS. Chastelain.
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Helen (6)

​St. Helen (6), or Helan, Oct. 7. 5th or 7th century. One of the brothers or sisters of St. Tressan (Feb. 7) and St. Gibrian (May 8). Tressan was an illiterate but very good and religious man. He resolved to lead the life of a pilgrim, and taking with him his six brothers and three or four sisters, they came to Rheims during the episcopate of St. Remigius (in the 5th century), who ordained Tressan priest, after he had acquired the necessary amount of learning. Tressan spent the rest of his life in that country, and was buried at Avenay, in Champagne. Some say they lived in the 7th century. Fracla, Promptia, and Posenna are given as the names of the sisters. Compare with Helen (7), of Troyes, who is perhaps the same.
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Hildegard (1)

​St. Hildegard (1), April 30. + 783. Queen of the Franks. Founder of Kempten, and patron of that abbey and against pestilence. Represented giving bread to the poor, or giving a silver chalice to a poor priest (Guénebault). She was born about 704, of a noble and powerful family in Suabia,and became the second wife of Charlemagne, 771. She was the best of wives, kind to every one, and beloved by the court and people.
Charlemagne frequently moved from one residence to another, and wherever he went he liked to be accompanied by his mother, the famous Queen Bertha, by his wife and children, and by learned men, who instructed him and all his family, so that the court became the nucleus of a great school.
Hildegard built a magnificent abbey on her own beautiful property at Kempten, on the slope of the Tyrolese Alps. Stengel, in his Description of the most Famous Benedictine Cloisters in Germany, gives twenty-two pictures of Kempten, which he says is almost the grandest house of God in Germany. The Abbot was one of the four prince-abbots of the Roman Empire.
Hildegard died at Thionville, April 30, 783, and was buried in St. Arnold's Church at Metz, where her husband built a magnificent tomb over her.
Besides other children, she was the mother of Louis, who succeeded his father, and Rotrude, who died while affianced to Constantine, emperor of the East, son of St. Irene, empress. Charlemagne survived his wife thirty-one years. He was crowned emperor in 800, and died 814.
Both Charlemagne and Hildegard were honoured as saints from the time of their death. Nearly a hundred years after Hildegard's death, some of her relics were sent to Kempten as those of a saint; and near the great abbey she had built, a new monastery was founded under her invocation, and called by her name. Some opposition was made by the Church to the recognition of Charlemagne as a saint, for, despite his many great virtues, there were points in his private life that fell below the highest standard, but the people adored him so fervently and so persistently that eventually the worship had to be sanctioned.
The Lives of St Charlemagne and St. Hildegard are in the AA.SS., Jan. 28 and April 30. Charlemagne's Capitularies are in Migne, Cursus Completus. He is the outstanding figure in all histories of Western Europe, in the second half of the 8th and early part of the 9th century, and the hero of many pretty fictions. Eginhard, his secretary, wrote his Life, which is in sundry collections of Monumenta; it was published in English a few years ago, and is eminently readable and interesting. Capefigue's Charlemagne is a delightful ​French book, full of romantic fact and legend.
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Hildegard (2)

​St. Hildegard (2), Queen of Sweden, + 783. Mas Latrie. Perhaps he means Princess of Suabia and wife of Charlemagne.
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Helen (4)

​St. Helen (4). Daughter of Kilian. (See Brigid (1).)
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Lucy (23)

​B. Lucy (23), Oct 2, M. 1622, at Nangasaki (according to Pagès, it was at Chendai), with her husband, B. Lewis Giachici or Yakichi, and their sons, Andrew, aged eight, and Francis, four. Lewis was condemned to be burnt; as he was coming out of the place where he had heard his sentence, he met his wife and children, who had just been ordered to be beheaded. They were executed before his eyes, and he was stationed about six feet from the wood that was to roast him slowly to death; but he was so worn out with all he had suffered that his martyrdom was over in half an hour. Authorities, same as for Lucy de Freitas.
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Ludgard

​St. Ludgard sometimes means Lutgard, sometimes Leodegarius or Leger (Oct. 2), bishop of Autun, M. 678.
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Helen (5)

​St. Helen (5) of Auxerre, May 22. 5th century. A holy V. famous for her virtues and miracles. One of many persons who, being in the church of Auxerre, May 1, 418, when the Bishop St. Amator died on bis pontifical throne, saw his soul, in the form of a dove, borne to heaven by a choir of saints singing hymns. Henschenius in AA. SS. Her name is in the R. M., and in the ancient calendar of Reichenau, which is reproduced in AA. SS., Præfatioties, vol. iii.
# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Ida (3)

​St. Ida (3), May 5, 17 (Idaberg, Iduberga, Ista, Iste, Itha, Itisberg, Itta, Ydubergue, Ytha, etc.) 7th century. Represented (1) in a group with her husband and daughters, Gertrude (5) and Begga; (2) giving bread to the poor at the door of the monastery. Sometimes called sister of St. Modoald, bishop of Treves. She was a woman of high birth and good fortune, and was the wife of Pepin of Landen, one of the greatest men of the time, both in worldly importance and integrity. Their daughters were the famous SS. Gertrude and Begga, and they had a son, Grimoald, who succeeded his father. St. Ida's fame is lost in that of her younger daughter, St. Gertrude, but it was Ida who, on her husband's death, built the great double monastery of Nivelle on her own estate, and cut off her daughter's hair with her own hands, lest anything should prevent Gertrude from consecrating her life to God there. The mother and daughter gave land and funds to the Irish monks, Foillan and Ultan, at Fosse, or Mors-les-Fossez, to be a perpetual house of hospitality for pilgrims travelling that way. Ida lived five years as a nun under her daughter's rule, assisting her with her advice and care.
Pepin and Ida were buried in the Monastery of Nivelle. Both were called "Blessed" in the Netherlands, and their relics were carried in procession on certain days with those of other saints. Pepin's name was placed in the Litanies by authority of some prelates of the Low Countries, but it has been asserted that the services which were solemnized in their honour at Nivelle previously to the 16th century were not worship, but of the nature of prayers for the dead.
Baillet, "Pepin" (Feb. 1), and the authorities for Gertrude.
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Arriaga, Juan d'

From volume 1 of the work.
[ M. C. C. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Arrigoni, Carlo

From volume 1 of the work.
​ARRIGONI, Carlo, a lutenist, born at Florence at the beginning of last century, whose only claim to notice is his possible antagonism to Handel. He is said by Fétis and Schoelcher to have been engaged, with Porpora, as composer to the theatre at Lincoln's Inn, which was started as an opposition to Handel in 1734, and to have produced there in that year an opera called 'Fernando' without success; but it is impossible to discover on what this is grounded. That Arrigoni was in London at or about that date is possible, and even probable, since a volume of his 'Cantate da Camera' was published there in 1732; and in Arbuthnot's satire 'Harmony in an Uproar,' the 'King of Arragon' is mentioned amongst Handel's opponents, a name which Burney ('Commemoration') explains to mean Arrigoni. But on the other hand the impression he made must have been very small, and his opera becomes more than doubtful, for the names neither of Arrigoni nor Fernando are found in the histories of Burney or Hawkins, in the MS. Register of Colman, in the newspapers of the period, nor in any other sources to which the writer has had access. It is in accordance with this that Arrigoni is mentioned by Chrysander in connection with Arbuthnot's satire only ('Händel,' ii. 343).
[ G. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Arnold, Johann

From volume 1 of the work.
[ T. P. H. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Arsis and Thesis

From volume 1 of the work.
​ARSIS AND THESIS. Terms used both in music and in prosody. They are derived from the Greek. Arsis is from the verb αίρω (tollo, I lift or raise), and marks the elevation of the voice in singing, or the hand in beating time. The depression which follows it is called θέσισ (deposilio or remissio).
When applied to beating time, arsis indicates the strong beat, and thesis the weak: for the ancients beat time in exactly the reverse way to ours, lifting the hand for the strong beat and letting it fall for the weak, whereas we make the down beat for the strong accents, and raise our hand for the others.
When applied to the voice, a subject, counterpoint, or fugue, are said to be 'per thesin,' when the notes ascend from grave to acute; 'per arsin' when they descend from acute to grave, for here again the ancient application of the ideas of height or depth to music was apparently the reverse of our own.
[ F. A. G. O. ]