Editing Jacques Offenbach (section)

===Early years===
[[File:Offenbach-in-1840s.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Offenbach in the 1840s|alt=Drawing of young white man, seated, clean shaven, in 19th century day clothes, with longish but neat dark hair]]
Offenbach was born on 20 June 1819, as '''Jacob''' (or '''Jakob'''{{refn|Biographers are divided on the original form of his given name: Faris (1980),<ref name=f21>Faris, p. 21</ref> Pourvoyeur (1994),<ref>Pourvoyeur, p. 28</ref> Yon (2000),<ref>Yon, p. 49</ref> and Lamb (''Grove's Dictionary'', 2007)<ref name=grove/> give it as "Jacob"; Henseler (1930),<ref>Henseler, title page ''et passim''</ref> Kracauer (1938),<ref>Kracauer, p. 38</ref> Almeida (1976)<ref name="Almeida, p. iv">Almeida, p. iv</ref> Gammond (1980),<ref name=g15/> and Harding (1980)<ref>Harding, pp. 9–11</ref> give it as "Jakob". Gammond reproduces the title page of Offenbach's Opus 1 (1833), where his name is printed as "Jacob Offenbach".<ref>Gammond, p. 14</ref>|group= n}}) '''Offenbach''' to a Jewish family in the German city of [[Cologne]], which was then a part of [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]].<ref>Gammond, p. 13</ref> His birthplace in the {{langr|de|Großer Griechenmarkt}} was a short distance from the square that is now named after him, the {{langr|de|Offenbachplatz}}.<ref name=grove>{{cite Grove|last=Lamb|first=Andrew|author-link=Andrew Lamb (writer)|id=20271|title=Offenbach, Jacques [Jacob]|year=2001}} {{subscription required}}</ref> He was the second son and the seventh of ten children of Isaac Juda Offenbach {{né}} Eberst (1779–1850) and his wife Marianne {{née}} Rindskopf ({{circa|1783}}–1840).<ref>Faris, p. 14</ref> Isaac, who came from a musical family, had abandoned his original trade as a bookbinder and earned an itinerant living as a [[hazzan|cantor]] in synagogues and playing the violin in cafés.<ref>Faris, p. 17</ref> He was generally known as "{{langr|de|der Offenbacher}}", after his native town, [[Offenbach am Main]], and in 1808 he officially adopted Offenbach as a surname.{{refn|Gammond and Almeida state that Isaac was already using the surname Offenbach by the time of his marriage in 1805. Yon states that the formal adoption of the surname in 1808 was in compliance with a Napoleonic decree requiring Jewish surnames to be regularised.<ref>Gammond, p. 13, Almeida, p. ix, and Yon, p. 10</ref>|group= n}} In 1816 he settled in Cologne, where he became established as a teacher, giving lessons in singing, violin, flute, and guitar, and composing both religious and secular music.<ref name=g15>Gammond, pp. 13 and 15</ref>

When Jacob was six years old his father taught him to play the violin; within two years the boy was composing songs and dances, and at the age of nine he took up the cello.<ref name=g15/> As Isaac was by then the permanent cantor of the local synagogue, he could afford to pay for his son to take lessons from the well-known cellist Bernhard Breuer. Three years later, the biographer [[Gabriel Grovlez]] records, the boy was giving performances of his own compositions, "the technical difficulties of which terrified his master", Breuer.<ref name=grovlez>[[Gabriel Grovlez|Grovlez, Gabriel]]. "Jacques Offenbach: A Centennial Sketch", ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'', Vol. 5, No. 3 (July 1919), pp. 329–337 {{JSTOR|738195}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Together with his brother Julius (violin) and sister [[Isabella Offenbach Maas|Isabella]] (piano), Jacob played in a trio at local dance halls, inns and cafés, performing popular dance music and operatic arrangements.<ref>Faris, p. 18</ref>{{refn|Offenbach was accustomed to giving the year of his birth as 1821, possibly a legacy of his days as a child prodigy, when his age was routinely understated for effect.<ref name=g15/><ref name=grovlez/>|group= n}} In 1833 Isaac decided that his musically talented sons Julius and Jacob (then aged 18 and 14) needed to leave the provincial musical scene of Cologne to study in Paris. With generous support from local music lovers and the municipal orchestra, with whom they gave a farewell concert on 9 October, the two young musicians, accompanied by their father, made the four-day journey to Paris in November 1833.<ref>Faris, p. 19</ref>

Isaac had been given letters of introduction to the director of the [[Paris Conservatoire]], [[Luigi Cherubini]], but had to persuade Cherubini even to give Jacob an audition. The boy's age and nationality were both obstacles to admission.{{refn|Yon notes that although foreign nationality was an absolute barrier to entry for the Conservatoire's prestigious competitions, it was a lesser obstacle to enrolment as a student.<ref>Yon, p. 23</ref>|group= n}} Cherubini had several years earlier refused the twelve-year-old [[Franz Liszt]] admission on similar grounds,<ref>Faris, p. 20</ref> but he eventually agreed to hear the young Offenbach play. He listened to his playing and stopped him, saying, "Enough, young man, you are now a pupil of this Conservatoire."<ref name=g17>Gammond, p. 17</ref> Julius was also admitted. Both brothers adopted French forms of their names, Julius becoming Jules and Jacob becoming Jacques.<ref>Harding, p. 19</ref>

[[File:Offenbach's-mentors.png|thumb|right|Early influences (clockwise from top left) [[Luigi Cherubini]], [[Fromental Halévy]], [[Friedrich von Flotow]], [[Louis-Pierre Norblin]]|alt=head shots of four middle-aged white men, all clean-shaven, except that Flotow has a moustache]]
Isaac hoped to secure permanent employment in Paris but failed to do so and returned to Cologne.<ref name=g17/> Before leaving, he found several pupils for Jules; the modest earnings from those lessons, supplemented by fees earned by both brothers as members of synagogue choirs, supported them during their studies. At the conservatoire, Jules was a diligent student; he graduated and became a successful violin teacher and conductor, and was {{lang|fr|[[concertmaster|premier violon]]}} of his younger brother's orchestra for several years.<ref>Gammond, p. 18</ref> By contrast, Jacques was bored by academic study and left after a year. The conservatoire's roll of students notes against his name "Struck off on 2&nbsp;December 1834 (left of his own free will)".<ref>Faris, p. 224</ref>{{refn|Harding gives the date as 24 December.<ref>Harding, p. 20</ref>|group=n}}