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Scan 166
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927
20 lines. Read by computer on 5 September 2026. Printed page 130. See the scan on archive.org.
1style shows the transition from the madrigal to the operatic chorus; examples are printed by Pedrell, Teatro lirico. J. B. T.
3PEZEL (PEZELIUS), JOHANN, a 17th-century Austrian musician who, in 1672, entered an Augustinian monastery at Prague which he left soon after, and became a Protestant. He went to Bautzen, where he became director of the waits (town musicians). Adelung states that he became afterwards cantor of the school of St. Thomas, Leipzig. He was very influential in the evolution of instrumental forms and the style of orchestral writing. Apart from a large amount of instrumental compositions, including some books of sonatas, etc., for wind instruments, he wrote also sacred vocal music, and 2 books on music (Reissmann, Allgemeine Geschichte d. Musik, vol. ii. p. 300; Q.-L.; Mendel).
5PEZZE, ALESSANDRO (b. Milan, Aug. 11, 1835; d. May 27, 1914), an able violoncellist, received his first musical education from his father, an excellent amateur. In 1846 he entered the Milan Conservatorio after competition, receiving instruction from Merighi, also the master of Piatti. After a course of concerts in North Italy he was appointed first violoncello at La Scala. Lumley brought him to Her Majesty's Theatre in 1857, where he remained till the theatre was burnt down. He undertook various tours in the United Kingdom with Tietjens, Santley, and other well-known artists, and in 1870 accepted the post of principal violoncello at Covent Garden and (with Pettit) at the Philharmonic, but resigned three years later in order to devote himself to teaching, on being appointed to fill Piatti's place at the R.A.M. He frequently played at the Popular Concerts either in conjunction with Piatti or replacing him. Pezze formed many excellent pupils. He played upon a fine Ruggieri violoncello and, in latter years, upon the 'Mara' Stradivari.
7W. W. C.
9PFEIFFER, GEORGES JEAN (b. Versailles, Dec. 12, 1835; d. Paris, Feb. 14, 1908), pianist and composer. His first piano lessons were from his mother, Mme. Clara Pfeiffer, an excellent pianist of the school of Kalkbrenner. Maleden and Damcke first taught him composition. He gained a brilliant success at the Conservatoire concerts in 1862, in which year his operetta 'Capitaine Roche' was performed. His compositions include a symphony, a quintet, trios, sonatas, concertos, of which the third has been repeated several times in Paris. Also an oratorio, 'Agar'; a symphonic poem, 'Jeanne d'Arc'; an overture, 'Le Cid,' and a quantity of piano music, including some well-known studies. An important work is a one-act comic opera, 'L'Enclume,' represented in 1884 and 1885. Pfeiffer succeeded his father, Émile Pfeiffer, as a partner in the piano firm of Pleyel, Wolff et Cie, Paris. His great-uncle, J. Pfeiffer, was one of the pioneers of piano-making in Paris.
11A. J. H.
13PFITZNER, HANS (b. Moscow, May 5, 1869), the son of German parents, holds in Germany a leading position as the representative of distinctively national ideals in music. He is an eminent composer whose appeal at present is chiefly to his own countrymen.
15Pfitzner's father, a violinist, became Musikdirector at the Stadttheater of Frankfort and was his son's first teacher. At 17 Pfitzner entered Hoch's Conservatorium at Frankfort where he studied (1886-90) the pianoforte with James Kwart and composition with Ivan Knorr. On completing his course he took a teaching appointment at the Coblenz Conservatorium, and in 1893 gave at Berlin a concert of his own compositions. Minor posts as teacher and conductor occupied him until in 1897 he obtained a more important one at Stern's Conservatorium in Berlin, and in 1903 became first Kapellmeister at the Theater des Westens there. A series of subscription concerts which he conducted in 1907 with the Kaim Orchestra began his association with MUNICH (q.v.), but in the following year a post as Musikdirector at the Opera and Conservatoire of Strassburg claimed him. In 1913 the University of Strassburg presented him with the degree of D.Phil., honoris causa, and he continued his labours as conductor of the opera there until 1916. Meantime his compositions had made their mark in Germany, the greater part of them consisting of concerted chamber music, choral pieces and many songs which gave evidence of his affinity with the 'romantic' composers, especially Schumann. Two early music dramas, 'Der arme Heinrich' (Mainz, 1895) and 'Die Rose von Liebesgarten' (Elberfeld, 1901), had shown his quality on the stage, and the latter had been given in some half-dozen German cities as well as at Vienna under Mahler. The production of the dramatic legend, 'Palestrina,' the work of his maturity, at Munich on June 12, 1917, placed him in an altogether different category. He was his own librettist, and following the precedent set by Wagner (and adopted once by Richard Strauss in 'Feuersnot') the composer identified his hero with himself and made Palestrina's inspiration in the composition of the 'Missa Papae Marcelli' a symbol of his own spiritual condition. It is so at any rate that the work has been received, and it has been given with becoming solemnity at Stuttgart, Berlin, Vienna and other strongholds of the German tradition, and regarded by Pfitzner's admirers as a successor to 'Parsifal.'
17Pfitzner's philosophy of art, his grounding in Schopenhauer and Wagner, his individual
191 For a description of 'Palestrina' and a critical estimate of Pfitzner's work as a whole see the article 'Hans Pfitzner,' by E. J. Dent, Music and Letters, vol. iv. No. 2.
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