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MICHAEL WILLIAM BALFE

15th May 1808 --- 20th October 1870

Balfe was born in Dublin in 1808, at an early age his musical gifts became apparent . His father was a dancing master and violinist, who gave
him his first musical instruction.   Balfe was also helped by the  composer William Rooke in his musical education.  While still  only a child his
family moved to Wexford. Balfe was still only a child when he started to play the violin for his father's dancing-classes and at only the age of
seven he composed his first piece of music.

At 9 years old  he made his  first public  appearance as a solo violinist,  and he also composed  a ballad, called  "Young Fanny".  In 1823,  his
father died, Balfe was   still only a young teenager but soon after this he obtain a position as a violinist in the orchestra of the Theatre Royal
Drury Lane, London, becoming later in life the leader of this orchestra, in 1824 he became the organist at St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

A year later he was  taken under the wing of Count Mazzara,  who offered to take him to Rome for vocal and musical studies,  he introduced
Balfe to Luigi Cherubini.  Balfe produced a couple of works,  composing a ballet titled La Perouse.  He also met Rossini who saw in him great
prospects, he then became Rossini's protegee.  Rossinin sent Balfe to the Italian opera in Paris to sing  in his The Barber of Seville as well as
some others.

Around a year later Balfe returned to Italy, where he stayed for the next eight years, singing and composing operas. It was in 1841 that Balfe
founded the National Opera at the Lyceum Theatre,  but it was a complete failure,  so he settle back to composing various opera's such as Les
 quatre fils Aymon(1844) and  L'etoile de  Seville (1845),   it was in  1843 that Balfe composed  and produced one of  his  most successful work
The Bohemian Girl in 1843.

Balfe composed an innovative cantata Inno Delle Nazioni in anticipation of the Great International Exhibition in London in 1851, near the end
of his life  he set to work on his  new Opera titled The Knight of the Leopard  and nearly completed it,   but died before he  could finish,  but  it
was played after his death and had a quite a good review, it was quiet successful.

Balfe then retired to Hertfordshire in 1864, where he died in 1870, aged 62.

Last Updated on December 2025
By Steven Ritchie

And now for the Music

NEW (4842)"Fantasia for Piano". Sequenced by Steven Ritchie.

(3899)"Le Puits d'Amour, (The Well of Love)". Sequenced by Steven Ritchie.

"Overture to the Bohemian Girl". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

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