GOLDINGEN (Lettish, Kuldiga), a town of western Cour land in Latvia, 55 m. by rail N.E. of Libau, and on Windau river, in 56° 58' N. and E. Pop. (1930) 6,921. It has several small industries including leather, woollen goods, food products, needles and other metal industries, matches and other products of wood. There are glass works and lime kilns in the neighbour hood, and ruins of a castle of the Teutonic Knights, built in 1248. GOLDMARK, KARL (1832-1915), Hungarian composer, was born at Keszthely-am-Plattensee, Hungary, on May 18, 1832, the son of a poor cantor in the local Jewish synagogue. On a cheap violin and home-made flute, the future composer first gave rein to his musical ideas. After the revolution of 1848 he was to have been shot for a spy, and was only saved at the eleventh hour by the happy arrival of a former colleague. There followed the "Sakuntala" and "Penthesilea" overtures, showing the influence of Wagner, and the delightful "Landliche Hochzeit" symphony, which carried his fame abroad. His first and best opera, Die Konigin von Saba (Vienna, 1875) was followed in November 1886, also at Vienna, by Merlin, much of which was afterwards rewritten. A third opera, a version of Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth, was given by the Royal Carl Rosa Company in London in 1900. He died at Vienna on Jan. 2, 1915.
See Erinnerungen aus meinen Leben (Vienna, 1923) .