Life
He was born in Bridgend, on Saint David's Day, 1 March 1826, son of a tailor, also named John Thomas, a clarinetist in the amateur town band. He was the eldest of seven children, four of whom also played the harp, most notably his brother Thomas Thomas. John Thomas started off by playing the triple harp which had three sets of strings and was very difficult to play. At the age of 14, through the influence of Ada Lovelace (Lord Byron's daughter), he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Music in London. His teachers there included Cipriani Potter for composition.
He taught at the Royal College of Music, where he eventually became professor, and at the Guildhall School of Music.
He wrote many pieces for the harp that are very popular today and are used in the exam syllabus. He also wrote an opera, a symphony, two harp concertos, overtures, chamber music, and two cantatas – Llewellyn (1863) and The Bride of Neath Valley (1866). He played one of his own harp concertos at a Philharmonic concert in 1852.
In 1861, he was briefly engaged to the Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt.
In 1872 he was appointed harpist to Queen Victoria.
Read more about this topic: John Thomas (harpist)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
“The woods were as fresh and full of vegetable life as a lichen in wet weather, and contained many interesting plants; but unless they are of white pine, they are treated with as little respect here as a mildew, and in the other case they are only the more quickly cut down.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Wherever art appears, life disappears.”
—Francis Picabia (1878–1953)