Sebatian Bach Mills

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Sebastian Bach Mills, (b.March 13,1838, in Cirencester, England; d. December 21, 1898, in Wiesbaden, Germany) was a well-known pianist, piano teacher, and composer who made his name in New York City and was a friend of William Steinway. Steinway often attended concerts at which Mills introduced American audiences to piano concertos by such leading composers as Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, and Carl Maria von Weber.

Born to Ameila and John Williams Mills, organist at Gloucester Cathedral and an admirer of Johann Sebastian Bach (thus the middle name), young Mills chose to concentrate not on the organ but on the piano, and was recognized as an “infant prodigy” through such performances at age six at Drury Lane Theatre in London of Czerny’s Rondo Brilliant on Themes from Prerciosa and at the age of seven a command performance before Queen Victoria.(7)

In 1847 Mills came under the influence of Liszt’s circle when he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory under, among others, Carl Czerny, Ignaz Moscheles, Louis Plaidy, and Moritz Hauptmann.(5)(7) It was also where Mills met his future wife, another piano student, Antonia Young (or Antoinette Jung), a native of Germany whose family had emigrated to Chicago.(5)(7) On the passenger list of the Asia, bound from Liverpool to New York City in 1859, at age twenty, he appears as S. B. Mills, and it was under that name that he made his career in the United States with the piano both as a performer and a highly-regarded teacher of the piano.(3) Most of his few compositions for piano were written in the 1860’s and early 1870s.(5)

According to one source, he went to America in 1856, and by March 26, 1859, he was selected “by the New York Philharmonic Society music director Carl Bergmann to perform the Schumann Piano Concert in A minor. Its favorable reception before a largely German-speaking crowd led Bergmann to reengage Mills for other performances and the pianist appeared annually with the Philharmonic Society from 1859 to 1877.”(5)

William Steinway mentions Mills in diary entries from 1861 to 1895. The first entry on November 9, 1861 was terse: “N.Y.Phil.Con.at Irving hall. Mills plays.” (The program included the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor by Frederic Chopin). The second Mills entry was eight months later (Diary, 1862-07-13) when Mills joined William and members of the amateur singing club, the Arion Society, on a trip to Buffalo, N.Y. where Mills stayed at the home of William’s in-laws, the Roos family. On January 31, 1863, Mills played a Beethoven Concerto with the Philharmonic, and later played a “private concert at Mr. Hardts Parlors, 163 E, 15th st to aid Mrs. Drehl-Coronini” (William and his friend Fred Steins sang).(Diary, 1863-02-20) By the end of 1863, Mills was playing on Steinway pianos, his preferred piano during his time in New York: “Philharmonic Society Concert in the eve. Very fine. Mills plays on our Grand Concert fr. Hiller and Waltz from Faust by Liszt.” (Diary, 1863-11-07), In an interview in 1889 Mills wrote, “This country is the paradise of musicians. Badly paid and overworked, the foreign player looks forward to his visit here.”(2)

With the arrival in New York of the noted pianist Rafael Joseffy, who was the preferred pianist of the new director of the New York Philharmonic conductor Theodore Thomas, Mills largely retired from the concert stage in 1880 and continued as teacher of piano in New York City. He did on occasion continue to perform at Steinway Hall.(1)(5) Together with his wife, he returned to Wiesbaden, Germany in April of 1897. His health declined and in December of 1898, he suffered the first of several strokes that ultimately resulted in his death on December 21, 1898.(4)
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Sources:

(1) “General Mention,” The New York Times, February 7, 1883, p. 5.
(2) “Musician’s Paradise,” The New York Times, September 23, 1889, p.8.
(3) Passenger List, Asia, Liverpool Bound for New York February 1859.
(4) “Sebastian Bach Mills Dead,” Chicago Tribune, December 24, 1898, p.5.
(5) “Sebastian BacH Mills,” Wikipedia
accessed February 13, 2019
(6)The United States Census 1880, State of New York County of New York, Supervisor's District 1, Enumeration District 165, p. 32.
(7) Van Dyke, John C. (ed.), The History of American Music. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1904, p.29