The New International Encyclopædia/Kobbé, Gustav

KOBBÉ, kōb'bắ, Gustav (1857—). An American music critic and author, born in New York. When ten years old he was sent to Wiesbaden, Germany, to study composition and the piano with Adolf Hagen. After five years with that teacher he completed his musical studies with Mosenthal in New York, and in 1877 graduated from Columbia College, and two years later from the Columbia Law School. He became engaged in literary and newspaper work, and contributed articles on musical and dramatic subjects to the leading magazines and periodicals. His two-volume Wagner's Life and Works (1890), which gives analyses and the leitmotives of the music dramas, is well known to students of music. In addition he published: The Ring of the Nibelung (1889); New York and Its Environs (1891); Plays for Amateurs (1892); My Rosary, and Other Poems (1896); Miriam (1898).