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(fl c1010–961 bce). Founder, king and charismatic ruler of the united kingdom of Israel. He occupies a central position in Jewish and Christian musical tradition.

The story of David is told in the books of Samuel, dating from nearly contemporary sources, and 1 Chronicles, from the 4th century bce, containing material of somewhat lesser reliability. He was obviously a man of special talent. Born the youngest son of Jesse (Yishai), a sheep herder from Bethlehem, he acquired, by a combination of prowess at arms, vision, opportunism and force of personality, the kingship of Judah upon the death of Saul, united it to the northern provinces of Israel, established his court at Jerusalem and conquered the neighbouring rivals of Israel within an area stretching from the frontier of Mesopotamia to Egypt. His political achievement, which showed signs of disintegration in his later life, was never again equalled in ancient Israel. Thus he became the ideal of Jewish kingship and was also closely related to the Messianic ideal. These ideals carried over into Christianity so that a medieval ruler like Charlemagne was referred to as the ‘novus David’, and Jesus of Nazareth, whom the Christians accepted as the Messiah, was, according to the Gospels, the ‘son of David’ of the ‘tree of Jesse’....

(b Berlin, June 19, 1761; d Berlin, May 11, 1854). German harpsichordist, music collector and patron. She was a daughter of the Jewish banker Daniel Itzig (1723–99) and great-aunt of Mendelssohn. On 2 July 1783 she married the banker Samuel Salomon Levy (1760–1806). With her siblings, of whom Fanny von Arnstein (1758–1818) and Zippora Wulff (later Cäcilie von Eskeles, 1760–1836) were particularly well known as musical amateurs, she received a thorough musical education. She is said to have been a pupil of W.F. Bach at a later date, and she was certainly in contact with C.P.E. Bach, from whom she commissioned a harpsichord concerto. A number of contemporary documents mention her activity as a harpsichordist in private musical circles, for instance in the house of her brother-in-law Joseph Fliess. Later she frequently performed with the Ripienschule of the Berlin Sing-Akademie founded by C.F. Zelter. She was particularly interested in the music of the Bach family as well as the works of other Berlin composers (J.G. and C.H. Graun, Janitsch and Quantz), and is therefore one of the figures central to the appreciation of Bach in Berlin in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She gave the Sing-Akademie considerable parts of her extensive collection of music, including autograph manuscripts by W.F. and C.P.E. Bach; after her death, some of the remaining items apparently came into the possession of A.W. Bach, and is now dispersed among many European and North American libraries....

(b Mannheim, June 5, 1879; d London, Jan 9, 1985). English music patron of German birth . Son of a wealthy and musical German-Jewish brewer, he entered the Mannheim Conservatory when he was six. He was a gifted pianist, and at the age of 11 was encouraged by Brahms. He became a businessman, however, settling in England in 1896 and becoming a naturalized British subject in 1902. In 1919 he married the singer Dorothy Moulton. Having made his fortune in the metal business in the USA and the City by 1923, he sought to make a lasting contribution to music. His wife’s recollection of a concert for children they had heard in New York decided the form their patronage would take. The first Robert Mayer Children’s Concert (29 March 1923) coincided with a transport strike in London, but the audience (300 for the first concert) grew to ...