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Scan 723
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1910
8 lines. Read by computer on 10 September 2026. Printed page 661. See the scan on archive.org.
1as a third hand, concurrently with the extension of the pedal-board downwards, from G to C below it, and also upwards, to the E or F, two octaves and a third or fourth above it. This extension enables the performer to lay out harmonies after the manner of the 'harmonic chord,' in which the largest intervals are found between the lowest notes. More than this, it has brought within his reach, what on the old G pedal-board was obviously outside it, the organ compositions of J. S. Bach and his school. Seventy years ago, or even later, there were probably not half-a-dozen Englishmen who could have played one of the Organ Fugues of that great master; certainly there were not as many organs on which they could have been played. Dr. Peace's mechanical powers enable him not merely to deal with everything as yet written expressly for his instrument, but to realise upon it compositions designed for all the combinations of the modern orchestra. His published compositions include anthems, services, and organ works, a setting of Psalm 138 for soli, chorus, and orchestra; and a cantata 'St. John the Baptist.'
3PEARCE, 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.
5PEARSALL, ROBERT LUCAS (DE), born at Clifton, March 14, 1795, of an old family, originally of Halesowen, Worcestershire, and then of Horsley, Staffordshire. He was privately 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, Willsbridge 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 hypodiataessaron 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 successively 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 Musikforschung, 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 compositions, 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.
7His 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 understood 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 archæology, 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 1833, and was part-editor of the old hymn-book of St. Gall, published in 1863 under the title of 'Katholisches Gesangbuch zum Gebrauch bei dem öffentlichen Gottes-
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