COSTA, SIR MICHAEL ANDREW AGNUS (1808-1884)

This article appears in Volume V07, Page 219 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: COR-CRE

COSTA, SIR MICHAEL ANDREW AGNUS (1808-1884) , British musical conductor and composer, the son of Cavaliere Pasquale Costa, a Spaniard, was born at Naples on the 14th of February 18o8. Here he became at an early age a scholar at the Royal College of Music. His cantata L'Immagine was composed when he was fifteen. In 1826 he wrote his first opera Il Delitto Punito; in 1827 another opera Il sospetto funesto. To this period belong also his oratorio La Passione, a grand

Mass

for four voices, a Dixit

Dominus

DOMINUS (from an Indo-European root dam-, cf. Gr. Sapav, to subdue, and Eng. " tame ")

, and three symphonies. The opera Il Carcere d'Ildegonda was composed in 1828 for the Teatro Nuovo, and in 1829 Costa wrote his Malvina for Barbaja, the impresario of San Carlo. In this latter year he visited

Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM

to conduct Zingarelli's Cantata Sacra, a setting of some verses from

Isaiah

ISAIAH
ISAIAH, ASCENSION OF

ch. xii. Instead, however, of conducting, he sang the

tenor

TENOR (through Fr. and It. from Lat. tenor, holding on, course, sense of a law, tone)

part. In 183o he settled in London, having a connexion with the King's theatre. His ballet Kenilworth 'was written in 1831, the ballet Une Heure a Naples in 1832, and the ballet Sir Huon (composed for Taglioni) in 1833. In this latter year he wrote his famous quartet Ecco quel fiero istante. Malek Adhel, an opera, was produced in Paris in 1837. In 1842 he wrote the ballet music of Alma for Cerito, and in 1844 his opera Don Carlos was produced in London. Costa became a naturalized Englishman and received the honour of

knighthood

KNIGHTHOOD

in 1869. He conducted the opera at Her Majesty's from 1832 till 1846, when he seceded to the Italian Opera at Covent

Garden

GARDEN (from O. Fr. garden, mod. Fr. jardin; this, like our words " garth," a paddock attached to a building, and " yard," comes from a Teutonic word for an enclosure which appears in Gothic as gards and O. H. Ger. gart, cf. Dutch gaarde and Ger. .garten)

; he was conductor of the Philharmonic Society from 1846 to 1854, of the Sacred Harmonic Society from 1848, and of the

Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM

festival from 1849. In 1855 Costa wrote Eli, and in 1864 Naaman, both for Birmingham. Meanwhile he had conducted the Bradford (1853) and

Handel

HANDEL, GEORGE FREDERICK (1685–1759)

festivals (1857188o), and the Leeds festivals from 1874 to 1880. On the 29th of April 1884 he died at

Brighton

BRIGHTON

. Costa was the

great

GREAT

conductor of his day, but both his musical and his human sympathies were somewhat limited; his compositions have passed into oblivion, with the exception of the least admirable of themhis arrangement of the national anthem.

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