A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Aspull, George

ASPULL, George, born in 1814 [App. p.524 "June 1813 at Manchester"], at a very early age manifested an extraordinary capacity as a pianoforte player. At eight years of age, notwithstanding that the smallness of his hands was such that he could not reach an octave, so as to press down the two keys simultaneously without great difficulty, and then only with the right hand, he had attained such proficiency as to be able to perform the most difficult compositions of Kalkbrenner, Moscheles, Hummel, and Czerny, besides the concertos of Handel, and the fugues of Bach and Scarlatti, in a manner almost approaching the excellence of the best professors. He also sang with considerable taste. As he grew older, his improvement was such as to lead to the expectation that he would eventually take a place amongst the most distinguished pianists. These hopes were, however, disappointed, by his death from a pulmonary disease, at the age of eighteen. He died Aug. 20, 1832, at Leamington, and was buried two days afterwards at Nottingham. Aspull left several manuscript compositions for the pianoforte, which were subsequently published, with his portrait prefixed, under the title of 'George Aspull's posthumous Works for the Pianoforte.' [App. p.524 "he first appeared at a concert in Jan. 1822. In the following year he played to Clementi in London, and on Feb. 20, 1824, before George IV. at Windsor. He played Weber's Concertstück for the first time in England at a concert at Brighton. After a visit to Paris in April 1825 he undertook a number of concert tours throughout Great Britain and Ireland. It was at Clementi's funeral that Aspull caught the cold which eventually ended in his death on Aug. 19. (Dict. of Nat. Biog.)"]

[ W. H. H. ]