3-039-142 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sir Julius Benedict, 1871. Engraving from a photograph by Mr. H. J. Whitlock. 'After various changes of locality and incessant activity, the subject of our memoir settled, in 1838, in London, where he has since permanently resided. In 1850 he accompanied Jenny Lind to America, from which he returned in the following year, with the substantial results of a successful professional tour. The name of Benedict is identified with all the higher branches of an active and productive musical career. As an orchestral director of Italian Opera at Her Majesty's and Drury-lane Theatres during several seasons, at the Norwich Triennial Festivals for the past nine occasions; as a composer of pianoforte and vocal music, of orchestral works, important productions in the form of opera and oratorio, he has alike earned wide and honourable distinction...the high professional attainments of Sir Julius Benedict are allied to intellectual powers and acquirements that are, unfortunately, too seldom associated with the active cultivation of music. These combined qualities have long rendered him conspicuous as honourably upholding in every respect the dignity of the art which he has so successfully pursued'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.