Year 1834 (MDCCCXXXIV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.
Franz Paul Lachner (2 April 1803 – 20 January 1890) was a German composer and conductor.
Lachner was born in Rain am Lech to a musical family (his brothers Ignaz, Theodor and Vinzenz also became musicians). He studied music with Simon Sechter and Maximilian, the Abbé Stadler. He conducted at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna. In 1834, he became Kapellmeister at Mannheim. In 1835 he received the first prize for symphonic composition at Vienna with his Sinfonia passionata, and became royal Kapellmeister at Munich, becoming a major figure in its musical life, conducting at the opera and various concerts and festivals. His career there came to a sudden end in 1864 after Richard Wagner's disciple Hans von Bülow took over Lachner's duties. Lachner remained officially in his post on extended leave for a few years until his contract expired.
Lachner was a well-known and prolific composer in his day, though he is not now considered a major composer. His work, influenced by Ludwig van Beethoven and his friend Franz Schubert, is regarded as competent and craftsman-like, but is now generally little known. Among his greatest successes were his opera Caterina Cornaro (1841), his Requiem and his seventh orchestral suite (1881). In the present day it may be his organ sonatas (Opp. 175, 176, 177) as well as chamber music, in particular his music for wind instruments, that receives the most attention, though his string quartets and some of his eight symphonies have been performed and recorded. His songs, some of which are set to the same texts that Schubert used in his songs, contributed to the development of the German Lied.
George Macfarren (1788–1843) was a playwright and the father of composer George Alexander Macfarren. Macfarren's first play, Ah! What a Pity, or, The Dark Knight and the Fair Lady, was produced on 28 September 1818 at the English Opera House; for the next several decades, a Macfarren play was produced approximately once a year.
Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) was a British Particular Baptist preacher. Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is known as the "Prince of Preachers". He was a strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church in agreement with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith understanding, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day.
In his lifetime, Spurgeon preached to around 10,000,000 people, often up to 10 times each week at different places. Spurgeon was the pastor of the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London for 38 years. He was part of several controversies with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and later had to leave the denomination. In 1857, he started a charity organization which is now called Spurgeon's and works globally. He also founded Spurgeon's College, which was named after him posthumously.
Philip Cipriani Hambly Potter (3 October 1792 – 26 September 1871) was a British composer, pianist and educator.
Born in London, the son of a piano teacher named Richard Huddleston Potter, Cipriani was named after his godmother (a sister of Giovanni Battista Cipriani). His father began his musical instruction, which was continued by Thomas Attwood, William Crotch and Joseph Wölfl. In 1816 an overture by him was performed at a Philharmonic concert. Frustrated by a lack of opportunities in England, Potter went to Vienna in 1817, where he met Beethoven who advised him to study with Aloys Förster. Returning to England in 1819, Potter became a central figure in London concert life as both a pianist and conductor, playing piano in the British premiere of several Mozart piano concertos and Beethoven's 1st, 3rd and 4th piano concertos, as well as conducting the British premiere of Mendelssohn's G minor piano concerto with the composer at the piano.
In 1822, Potter began teaching at the Royal Academy of Music, first piano and later conducting the orchestra. In 1832 he became Principal of the Royal Academy, resigning in 1859. His students there included William Sterndale Bennett and Joseph Barnby. As Potter focused more on his educational work and preparing editions of Mozart and Beethoven keyboard music, he composed less and less often. There are few works written after 1837. He did, however, maintain a keen interest in new music from the continent. In 1871, he gave the first British rendition of Brahms's German Requiem, performing a piano duet version with pianist Kate Loder. This became known as the "London Version" (German: Londoner Fassnung) of the work.