Alberto Randegger

He began his composing and conducting career in Italy, where he knew Giuseppe Verdi, but in 1854 he moved to London, which became his base for the rest of his life.

[1] Randegger's earliest compositions were masses and other pieces of church music and, with two other young pupils of Ricci, he produced two ballets and an opera, Il Lazzarone, in 1852.

[2] In 1854 Randegger was engaged to conduct a season of Italian opera in New York and was on his way there when news arrived of a cholera outbreak in the city.

His singing pupils included sopranos Evangeline Florence,[4] Alice Barth,[5] Liza Lehmann,[6] Greta Williams[7] and Ellen Beach Yaw;[8] mezzo-soprano Mary Davies;[9] tenors Arthur Byron,[10] William Hayman Cummings,[11] and Ben Davies;[12] baritones David Bispham,[13] Andrew Black,[14] Charles W. Clark,[15] David Ffrangcon-Davies[16] and Frederick Ranalow;[17] and basses Darrell Fancourt,[18] Putnam Griswold[19] and Robert Radford.

[20] As a composer, in addition to his early works, Randegger wrote a comic opera, The Rival Beauties (1864);[2] a musical play with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, Creatures of Impulse (1871);[21] a dramatic cantata, the 150th Psalm, for soprano solo, choir, orchestra and organ (1872); Fridolin (1873), with a libretto by Hermine Küchenmeister-Rudersdorf;[22] two scenas for soprano and orchestra, Medea (1869) and Sappho (1875); a funeral anthem, An Angel Came Out of the Temple, in memory of the Prince Consort;[23] The Prayer of Nature (1887); and numerous other vocal pieces.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography observes that Randegger's compositions were distinguished by practical qualities, were always tasteful and externally effective, but had no deep originality, and soon fell into disuse.

There he conducted new works by John Barnett, Frederic Cowen, Edward German, Alexander Mackenzie, Hubert Parry, Ebenezer Prout, Charles Villiers Stanford and others.

[3] In his Mozart performances he removed the spurious orchestral parts added by his Covent Garden predecessors; a small collection of the composer's manuscripts was among his most treasured possessions.