Salon music was a popular music genre in Europe during the 19th century. It was usually written for solo piano in the romantic style, and often performed by the composer at events known as "Salons". Salon compositions are usually fairly short and often focus on virtuoso pianistic display or emotional expression of a sentimental character. Common sub-genres of salon music are the operatic paraphrase or fantasia, in which multiple themes from a popular opera are the basis of the composition, and the musical character-piece, which portrays in music a particular situation or narrative.

Many popular composers wrote at least a few pieces which fall into the category of salon music. Some pianists composed only salon music, but many of these specialists have become highly obscure.

Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin (November 25, 1862 – February 17, 1901) was an American pianist and composer.

Nevin was born in 1862, at Vineacre, on the banks of the Ohio River, in Edgeworth, Pennsylvania. There he spent the first sixteen years of his life, and received all his schooling, most of it from his father, Robert P. Nevin, editor and proprietor of a Pittsburgh newspaper, and a contributor to many magazines. It is interesting to note that he also composed several campaign songs, among them the popular "Our Nominee," used in the day of James K. Polk's candidacy. The first grand piano ever taken across the Allegheny Mountains was carted over for Nevin's mother. Other members of the Nevin family showed musical inclinations as well; Nevin's younger brother, Arthur, also achieved some renown as a composer, as did his cousins George and Gordon Balch Nevin.

From his earliest infancy Nevin was musically inclined, and was playing the piano at the age of four. Cushions were piled on the pedals to enable him to reach them. Nevin's father provided for his son both vocal and instrumental instruction, even taking him abroad for two years of travel and music study in Dresden under Von Böhme. In 1878, he attended Western University, now known as the University of Pittsburgh, but left at the end of his freshman year in 1879. Later he studied the piano for two years at Boston, under Benjamin Johnson Lang, and composition under Stephen A. Emery.