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Scan 672
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1PEARCE
3third hand, concurrently with the extension the pedal-board downwards, from G to C &w it, and also upwards, to the E or F, two aves and a third or fourth above it. This ension enables the performer to lay out monies after the manner of the 'harmonic bord,' in which the largest intervals are found between the lowest notes. More than this, it is brought within his reach, what on the old pedal-board was obviously outside it, the gan compositions of J. S. Bach and his school. venty years ago, or even later, there were obably not half-a-dozen Englishmen who could ve played one of the Organ Fugues of that eat master; certainly there were not as many gans on which they could have been played. r. Peace's mechanical powers enable him not erely to deal with everything as yet written xpressly for his instrument, but to realise pon it compositions designed for all the com- inations of the modern orchestra. His pub- ished compositions include anthems, services, and organ works, a setting of Psalm 138 for soli, chorus, and orchestra; and a cantata 'St. John the Baptist.'
5J. H.
7PEARCE, JOSEPH, jun., ostensible author of a useful little handbook entitled 'Violins and Violin Makers' (London, 1866), traditionally supposed to have been written by the late Charles Reade. It contains an alphabetical list of violin-makers, short chapters on bow makers, also on the 'Amati family'; 'Stradivarius,' 'Guarnerius,' the 'Tyrolese makers'; 'Jacobus Stainer'; and an excellent little essay on 'Why are certain violins of more value than others?'—Heron-Allen, De Fidiculis Bibliographia; Matthew, The Literature of Music; Vidal, Les Instruments à archet. E. H.-A.
9PEARSALL, ROBERT LUCAS (DE), born at Clifton, March 14, 1795, of an old family, originally of Halesowen, Worcestershire, and then of Horsley, Staffordshire. He was pri- vately educated for the bar, and was called in 1821, going on the western circuit for four years. At the age of thirteen he wrote a cantata, 'Saul and the Witch of Endor,' which was privately printed; and in 1817 he married a Miss Hobday. In 1825, being abroad for the benefit of his health, he settled at Mainz and studied music under Josef Panny, remaining there until 1829, when he returned for a year to England, staying at his property, Wills-bridge in Gloucestershire. At the expiration of that time he removed once more to Germany, where he lived at Carlsruhe for a time, diligently composing. There he wrote a little 'ballet opera' which was never performed; some choruses from it were published by Weekes & Co. His op. 1, 'Miserere mei, Domine,' was published by Schott of Mainz about 1830; the fact that it is a 'canon perpetuus a 3 vocibus in hypodiapason et hypodiapason' shows that even in these early days the ingenuities of the older music had a special attraction for him. The compositions between this and an overture to Macbeth, with the witches' chorus, the parts of which appeared as op. 25 in 1839, do not seem to have been published (with the exception of op. 7 a Graduale a 5, 1835, and op. 8 an 'Ave verum' a 4, 1835), and the system of numbering his compositions seems to have been given up after this. He moved from place to place on the continent, studying suc- cessively at Munich with Caspar Ett, and at Vienna. In 1836, while on a visit to England, he made a more intimate acquaintance with the music of the English madrigalian school, mainly through the agency of the Bristol Madrigal Society. To this style he henceforth was chiefly attached for the remainder of his life, although he wrote several settings of psalms, (68th, 77th, and 57th), a Requiem mass, a 'Pange lingua' for three female voices (published 1857); the office of Tenebrae (in the library of the Gesellschaft für Musikfor- schung, Berlin), two settings of 'Salve Regina,' and other compositions for the Roman Catholic church, which he joined at the end of his life. He also took a deep interest in Anglican Church music, and wrote a number of works for its service. A collection of his sacred composi- tions, edited by T. Trimnell, was published about 1880. In 1837 he sold his property in England, and in 1842 bought the castle of Wartensee on the Lake of Constance. Here he appended the 'de' to his name, and enjoyed intercourse with many distinguished people. He died of apoplexy, August 5, 1856, and was buried in a vault at Wartensee.
11His published part-songs and madrigals number about sixty, and include a remarkable number of works which will remain as long as unaccompanied singing is practised. He under- stood the madrigal form thoroughly, but did not confine himself to the strict rules practised in the Elizabethan period; his works are no mere curiosities of a bastard archaeology, but living creations of art, full of fire, nobility of thought, high imagination, and splendid vocal sonority. Such things as 'Great God of Love,' 'Lay a Garland,' and 'Light of my Soul,' are real masterpieces in a form that has seldom been successfully employed in modern times; his part-songs, 'The Hardy Norseman,' and 'O who will o'er the downs so free,' are known and delighted in by every choral society in the country; and the noble choral ballad 'Sir Patrick Spens,' in ten parts, is a triumphantly successful adaptation of the part-song form to the requirements of a narrative in which eager intensity and hurry have to be depicted. Pearsall edited a 6-part 'Magnificat' by Lasso about 1838, and was part-editor of the old hymn-book of St. Gall, published in 1863 under the title of 'Katholisches Gesangbuch zum Gebräuch bei dem öffentlichen Gottes-
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