Letter from Isaac Nathan to an unknown correspondent

MLMSS 5912

fonds

1840 - 1840

74921

1 folder - 0.02m

Isaac Nathan (1790-1864), performer, composer, teacher, critic, theorist and musical publisher, was born in Canterbury, England, educated at Cambridge University, and later became music librarian to King George IV. He is probably best known for the Hebrew Melodies, the result of a collaboration with Lord Byron, whom he met in 1814. Financial problems influenced his decision to emigrate to Australia, and on his arrival in 1841, he became choral director of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney. Known as the "Father of Australian Music", during the next twenty years he assisted the careers of colonial musicians. His Don John of Austria, the first opera to be written, composed and produced in Australia, was first performed in Sydney in 1847. Nathan was the first professional musician to transcribe Aboriginal music. His Australian publications include Series of Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Music (1846) and The Southern Euphrosyne and Australian Music Miscellany (?1849). Nathan was killed in a vehicular accident in Sydney on 15 January 1864.

This letter, dated Lambeth 29 June 1840, was written to an unknown correspondent prior to Nathan's departure for Scotland. Nathan offers for sale the printing plates for the Hebrew Melodies and of his song Why are you wand'ring here I pray?, together with letter press copies of Hebrew Melodies.