What is George Grove?
'''Sir George Grove''' (born Clapham in South [[London]], 13 August 1820; died Sydenham on 28 May 1900) was an [[England|English]] [[engineer]] and [[musician]]. He wrote books about [[classical music|classical]] [[composer]]s and is particularly famous for his big musical dictionary ''[[Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]''. This dictionary continued to be updated and published after his death. It has now gone through seven editions. The latest edition is available online. ==Life== George Grove was born in Clapham in South London. His father sold [[fish]]. His mother was into musicals. He learned to be an [[engineer]] and was sent out to [[Jamaica]] to help to build a [[lighthouse]]. He worked on the building of the Britannia tubular bridge over the [[Menai Strait]]. He married the daughter of a [[clergyman]]. He became secretary of the Society of Arts and he wrote many articles for a Dictionary of the Bible. He spent seven years doing this. It gave him the idea of doing something similar for music. Grove went to many concerts. He bought [[sheet music]] and studied it. He wrote programme notes for concerts, writing about the music that was being played. He wrote about a lot of music by [[Beethoven]], [[Schubert]], [[Mendelssohn]] and [[Schumann]]. == Career == He wrote detailed essays about the [[symphony|symphonies]] of Beethoven and was a good friend of [[Clara Schumann]]. He travelled with the composer [[Arthur Sullivan]] to [[Vienna]] where he met many great musicians including [[Brahms]] and discovered some music by Schubert that had been forgotten. He spent several years writing his ''Dictionary of Music'' which was published in four volumes. Grove worked very hard to get enough money to found the [[Royal College of Music]] which was opened in 1883 by the [[Edward VII of the United Kingdom|Prince of Wales]]. Grove got many great musicians to come and teach there, including the world-famous singer [[Jenny Lind]] who was already retired, and [[Hubert Parry]], [[Charles Villiers Stanford]]