SIR

See also:

• MICHAEL
• MICHAEL (1596-1645)
• MICHAEL (Hebrew Sn,q, " Who is like God? ")

MICHAEL

See also:

• ANDREW (Gr. 'AvBp4as, manly)
• ANDREW, JOHN ALBION (1818-1867)

ANDREW AGNUS

See also:

• COSTA, GIOVANNI (1826–1903)
• COSTA, LORENZO (146o-r535)
• SIR MICHAEL ANDREW AGNUS COSTA (1808-1884)

COSTA (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, 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 to conduct Zingarelli's Cantata Sacra, a setting of some verses from Isaiah ch. xii . Instead, however, of conducting, he sang the tenor 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 in 1869 . He conducted the opera at Her Majesty's from 1832 till 1846, when he seceded to the Italian Opera at Covent Garden; he was conductor of the Philharmonic Society from 1846 to 1854, of the Sacred Harmonic Society from 1848, and of the 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 festivals (1857–188o), and the Leeds festivals from 1874 to 1880 . On the 29th of April 1884 he died at Brighton . Costa was the 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 them—his arrangement of the national anthem .