Francis Korbay

[1] He was born in Pest His father was a landowner and his mother was a descendant of the poet István Gyöngyösi.

The youth turned his attention to music, studying piano with Moronyi and composition with Robert Volkmann.

He studied voice with Gustave-Hippolyte Roger,[2] and in 1868 he made his operatic debut at the National Theatre of Budapest.

[1] But the strain was too great, and eventually he abandoned this career and applied himself to pianoforte study under his godfather Franz Liszt,[1] of whose music he became a well-known interpreter.

He went to England in 1871, but finding insufficient support, he went to New York and toured in the United States with the German tenor, Theodor Wachtel (1823 - 1893).