George Alexander Osborne

Osborne was born in Limerick in 1806, the son of a cathedral organist, and left Ireland at eighteen to teach the Dutch king's son in Brussels. He fought for the royalists in the Belgian revolution, was captured and released, then moved to Paris to study under leading masters and befriend Chopin and Berlioz. In London he directed music institutions, conducted amateurs, and died at eighty-seven in Regent's Park, buried without a marker at Highgate. His small-scale piano works, including the repeatedly printed Shower of Pearls, still sparkle like rain on a salon window.