Otto Goldschmidt

[1] Moritz was a prosperous merchant whose firm operated internationally, with branches in Britain as well as Germany; Johanna was an author and prominent social reformer.

[4] While still in Hamburg, Goldschmidt studied the piano and harmony with Friedrich Wilhelm Grund and Jacob Schmitt,[5] and in 1843 he became one of the first students at the new Leipzig Conservatoire.

He arrived in time to hear the composer's last Paris performance, given at the Salle Pleyel in February, but had not begun the intended studies with him when the French Revolution of 1848 broke out within days of the concert.

[9] At the time many leading musicians from the Continent were working in London, including Berlioz, Kalkbrenner, Liszt, Moscheles, Thalberg and Pauline Viardot and, importantly for Goldschmidt's career, Jenny Lind.

[9] She, always prominent in charitable work,[10] had recruited fellow stars including Luigi Lablache and Giovanni Belletti for a fund-raising recital in July 1848 at the concert room of Her Majesty's Theatre.

The reviewer in Bell's Weekly Messenger wrote of him: Goldschmidt performed in Hamburg and Leipzig, and in January 1850 he met Jenny Lind again at Lübeck.

She was nearing the end of a long American tour and her accompanist, Benedict, finding the pressure excessive, wished to return to Britain; Goldschmidt took over from him.

[5] Goldschmidt served as director of music at St John's, a new church in Putney, waiving any salary, to benefit the parish's funds.

[1] In 1876 Goldschmidt and Lind, together with Arthur Duke Coleridge, assembled and trained an amateur choir for the first complete performance in England of Bach's Mass in B minor, which was given on 26 April 1876 at St James's Hall.

[1] He edited many works for the choir and revived neglected music including Handel's Ode for St Cecilia's Day.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says of Goldschmidt as a pianist: "he was a surviving link with Mendelssohn's period, and his style was that of the composer – clear and expressive, but almost without pedal, and he was generally regarded as a dull performer".

His best-known work was the oratorio Ruth (1867), to a libretto by George Grove, premiered at the Three Choirs Festival at Hereford Cathedral in August 1867.