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Scan 128
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927
24 lines. Read by computer on 5 September 2026. Printed page 92. See the scan on archive.org.
1a useful little handbook entitled Violins and Violin Makers (London, 1866), traditionally supposed to have been written by 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?'
3BIBL.—HERON-ALLEN, De fidiculis bibliographia; MATTHEW, The Literature of Music; VIDAL, Les Instruments à archet.
5E. H.-A.
7PEARSALL, ROBERT LUCAS (b. Clifton, Mar. 14, 1795; d. Wartensee, Aug. 5, 1856), composer, came 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 13 he wrote a cantata, 'Saul and the Witch of Endor,' which was privately printed; and in 1817 he married 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 Willsbridge in Gloucestershire, which his mother had purchased in 1816, and which he inherited on her death in 1836.
9He 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 hypodiatessaron 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. In 1835 he published at Carlsruhe Stray Leaves from an Idler's Commonplace-book.1 He moved from place to place on the Continent, studying successively at Munich with Caspar Ett, and at Vienna. In 1836 he was in England, and he made a more intimate acquaintance with the music of the English madrigal school. The BRISTOL MADRIGAL SOCIETY (q.v.), founded in 1837, contributed thereto. To this style he became so attached for the remainder of his life that he wrote all his works in madrigal style within two or three years of this time, with two exceptions. 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 W. F. 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, and was buried in a vault at Wartensee.
11His published partsongs 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 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 masterpieces in a form that has seldom been successfully employed in modern times; his partsongs, '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 partsong form to the requirements of a narrative in which eager intensity and hurry have to be depicted.
13Pearsall 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 Gottesdienste.' He was a skilful draughtsman and had considerable literary facility; he contributed in early days to magazines in England, and made translations of Faust and Wilhelm Tell, the latter being published in 1829. He wrote many of his own words for madrigals. A great number of interesting treatises and compositions of different kinds are still in MS. at Einsiedeln, Vienna, Bristol, the R.C.M. and the British Museum.
15BIBL.—D.N.B., Musical Herald, Aug. 1906, the Sammelbände of the Int. Mus. Ges. for 1907, etc.
17M.; addns. H. W. H. and W. B. S.
19PEARSON, HENRY HUGO, see PIERSON.
21PEARSON, WILLIAM, a notable printer, who made many improvements in musical typography, and carried further Heptinstall's improvements. (See HEPTINSTALL.)
23Several works of his are dated 1699, one
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