Michael Balfe was an Irish
composer. Born in Dublin in 1808, he was the son of a dancing master. Balfe was
a precocious youth: he learned to play the violin to sing and to compose at an
early age. Whilst singing Italian opera
in France and Italy, he became acquainted with several masters of day, including
Cherubini and Rossini. In 1833, Balfe returned
to England, where he produced a series of light operas. The most enduring is The Bohemian Girl, premiered in 1843. He
continued to tour Europe and visited many countries including France, Spain,
Italy and Russia. In London he held the post of conductor at Her Majesty’s
Theatre in the Haymarket for several years. In 1864 he retired to a farm at
Rowney Abbey in Hertfordshire. Michael Balfe died there in 1870.
‘The composer of the popular Bohemian Girl once had an experience
that he did not care to duplicate.
Landladies are not supposed to be
very sentimental beings, at least toward their lodgers, but have the reputation
of being business-like and matter-of-fact; but the one who caused this peculiar
occurrence, in which Balfe was an interested party, certainly stood at the head
of the procession in her delight in silver rather than sentiment.
Balfe and other musicians were
engaged for a short time in some musical doings on the outskirts of London, and
rather than go back and forth from the city each day, they decided to take
rooms for the time in that neighbourhood.
But apartments were scarce, and
the genial Irishman was compelled to take what offered at a house not any too
prepossessing in its external appearance.
It was quite late. The landlady
was uncertain whether there were any spare rooms or not; but left him standing
in the hall-way while she went to see if she could arrange a room for him.
Finally, she returned and told him in a confused way that his apartment was
ready.
Tired by the day's labour, he
soon fell asleep without examining the room, but early the next morning
proceeded to make a tour of his apartment. He had not one far before he
discovered in a closet opening from his room a corpse, which had evidently been
put in its cramped quarters in great haste.
Balfe stopped not on the order of
his going, but took his departure, thankful, however, that he had not made the
discovery in the moonlight of the night before. The old lady had evidently been
unable to withstand the temptation to make a little ready cash, and summarily
deprived the body of her deceased relative of its temporary resting place, and
Balfe had calmly stepped in and taken its place.
He used to joke over the
landlady's eye to business, but that experience so impressed him that he never
occupied a strange room without making an examination prior to sleeping in it.’
From Anecdotes of Great Musicians
by W. Francis Gates (1895), with minor edits.
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