Michał Bergson (1820-98)?

[eschiss1]

One thing I notice about the manuscripts , scores etc. at Northwestern University is the recurrence of the name Michael (Michał, Michel) Bergso(h)n (1820 Warsaw -1898 London after living in Geneva). Never heard of him, but they have 55 works of his- not a ton, but still, a good number, and indeed many in manuscript, in many genres. Maybe (among) the "biggest" is the orchestral work, in manuscript parts, "The vulture's nest : prelude symphonique : apparition di Mitella" (date quite uncertain- 1835-1898!) - but there seem to be others ranging from brief songs to concertos.

Intriguing. Anyone heard anything by, seen anything by him...? I notice the English-language and Polish Wikipedia articles (also one in French), there's probably some other information on the net, will do some more searching and am guessing that at least some of the manuscript pages have incipit images like the Becker symphony link did, which can be informative too...
The name is familiar for some reason; maybe he had a student whose name rings much more of a bell, or something!
Thanks...
(Ah, and Jewish, making him one of my- less distant relatives, as things are measured, so to speak. Hee )

His fame did spread enough to the United States for an air from his opera "Luisa di Montfort" to be published here in clarinet arrangements (I see from memory.loc.gov ...)

[kolaboy]

This is a name I've not encountered before, sorry to say.

[eschiss1]

Looking at that Scene and Aria (published 1879) arranged (by him) from his opera now and slowly uploading to LoC. The clarinet at least seems to get a nice part; understandably operatic (well, it is a _scene_ and aria...) and seems flexible in rhythm.

I see on a quick search that he turns up as "Henri Bergson's father" (father of a famous philosopher).

Not a clarinettist, so can't say whether the writing is fluent. Ah, there's a YouTube of his scene and air (op.82, the work I'm uploading) (here- amateur performance.)

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Eric. Fascinating, as ever.