Michael Arne Michael Arne

Michael Arne ( c.1740 – 14 January 1786) was an English composer, harpsichordist, organist, singer, and actor. He was the son of the composer Thomas Arne and the soprano Cecilia Young, a member of the famous Young family of musicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Like his father, Arne worked primarily as a composer of stage music and vocal art song, contributing little to other genres of music. He wrote several songs for London's pleasure gardens, the most famous of which is Lass with the Delicate Air (1762). A moderately prolific composer, Arne wrote nine operas and collaborated on at least 15 others. His most successful opera, Cymon (1767), enjoyed several revivals during his lifetime and into the early nineteenth century.

Works

Arne was a moderately prolific composer. He wrote nine operas, collaborated on at least 15 others, wrote a small amount of incidental music for plays, and published seven song collections. He also wrote a small amount of music for the harpsichord and organ, some of which was published in 1761. Like his father, Arne wrote in the popular galante style of the day and utilized both rudiments of English folk music and Italian opera in his compositions. The following is a complete list of his stage works and published works.

Stage works

• Florizel and Perdita, or The Winter's Tale (21 January 1756, Drury Lane, London)
• The Humorous Lieutenant (10 December 1756, Covent Garden, London)
• Harlequin Sorcerer (1757, Covent Garden, London)
• Harlequin's Invasion (31 December 1759, Drury Lane, London)
• The Heiress or the Antigallican (21 May 1759, Drury Lane, London)
• Edgar and Emmeline (31 January 1761 Drury Lane, London)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (23 November 1763, Drury Lane, London)
• Hymen (23 January 1764, Drury Lane, London)
• Almena (2 November 1764, Drury Lane, London)
• Cymon (2 January 1767, Drury Lane, London)
• Linco's Travels (6 April 1767, Drury Lane, London)
• Tom Jones (14 January 1769, Covent Garden, London)
• The Maid of the Vale (15 February 1775, Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin)
• Emperor of the Moon (22 March 1777, Patagonian, London)
• The Fairy Tale (18 July 1777, Haymarket, London)
• The Fathers, or the Good-natured Man (30 November 1778, Covent Garden, London)
• Love in a Village (13 February 1779, Covent Garden, London)
• All alive at Jersey (22 May 1779, Sadler's Wells, London)
• The Conscious Lovers (27 September 1779, Covent Garden, London)
• The Belle's Stratagem (22 February 1780, Covent Garden, London)
• The Artifice (14 April 1780, Drury Lane, London)
• The Choice of Harlequin, or the Indian Chief (26 December 1781 Covent Garden, London)
• Vertumnus and Pomona (21 February 1782, Covent Garden, London)
• The Positive Man (16 March 1782, Covent Garden, London)
• The Maid of the Mill (25 September 1782, Covent Garden, London)
• The Capricious Lady (17 January 1783, Covent Garden, London)
• Tristram Shandy (26 April 1783, Covent Garden, London)

Song collections

Arne wrote close to two hundred vocal songs during his career, the majority of which were written for performance at London's pleasure gardens. Many of these songs were published in anthologies but at least some fifty or more songs were never published.

• The Floweret (London, 1750)
• The Violet (London, 1756)
• A Favourite Collection of English Songs (London, 1757)
• New Songs and Ballads (London, 1765)
• New Songs sung by Miss Wright at Vauxhall (London, c1765)
• A Collection of Favourite Songs sung by Mrs. Arne (London, 1773)
• Ranelagh Songs (London, 1780)

Other

• Lessons for the Harpsichord, (London, 1761)