Michael Arne

Michael Arne (1740 or 1741 – 14 January 1786) was an English composer, harpsichordist, organist, singer, and actor. He was the son of the composer Thomas Arne and the soprano Cecilia Young, a member of the famous Young family of musicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Like his father, Arne worked primarily as a composer of stage music and vocal art song, contributing little to other genres of music. He wrote several songs for London's pleasure gardens, the most famous of which is Lass with the Delicate Air (1762). A moderately prolific composer, Arne wrote nine operas and collaborated on at least 15 others. His most successful opera, Cymon (1767), enjoyed several revivals during his lifetime and into the early nineteenth century.

Michael Arne was born in either late 1740 or early 1741 in the Covent Garden area of London. Music historian Charles Burney, a close friend of the Arne family, indicates that he was Thomas Arne's natural son but there is some speculation among modern scholars that he may have been adopted. There is no record for Michael Arne at St Paul's, Covent Garden, where most of the Arne family were christened. His father, Thomas Arne, was the most important English theatrical composer of the eighteenth century and is considered the catalyst for the revival of English opera in the early 1730s. His mother, Cecilia Young, was one of the greatest English sopranos of the century and part of the famous Young family of musicians. Both Michael's grandfather, Charles Young, and his great-uncle, Anthony Young, were well known organists and minor composers. His Aunt Isabella was a successful soprano and the wife of composer John Frederick Lampe. His other aunt, Esther Young, was a contralto and the wife of music publisher Charles Jones. His cousins, Isabella, Elizabeth, and Polly, were all successful singers in their own right.

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