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Scan 125
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1928
18 lines. Read by computer on 12 September 2026. Printed page 87. See the scan on archive.org.
1navian and Slavonic music. The name of the artists performing is legion, and all have given their services for a merely nominal fee. Exceptional mention should be made of the late John Saunders, a violinist and quartet leader, who is the subject of a special notice. W. W. C.
3SOWERBY, LEO (b. Grand Rapids, Michigan, May 1, 1895), American pianist and composer. Educated at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, he subsequently became a teacher in that institution. During the Great War he served as bandmaster with the American forces in England and in France. In 1922 he was awarded the American Prix de Rome. In the United States he has been soloist with various orchestras; he has also given recitals in London and in Italy, and in 1923 he took part in the Salzburg (contemporary music) Festival. His compositions include:
5Pianoforte concerto; ballad for two pianos and orchestra; an orchestral suite, 'From the Northland,' and other orchestral pieces; chamber music; pieces for organ and pianoforte; and choral compositions. He has also written a 'Sinconata' for jazz orchestra.
7W. S. S.
9SPAGNOLETTI, P. (b. Cremona, 1768¹; d. London, Sept. 23, 1834), violinist, who held the post of leader of the King's Theatre orchestra for nearly thirty years. According to some MS. notes sent by the late George Bently—who was acquainted with some of Spagnoletti's relatives—to Dr. T. Lamb Phipson in 1877, this artist's real name was Paolo Diana. At the age of twelve he was introduced to the director of the Naples Conservatorio as a very promising pupil, whereupon the director placed an elaborate composition before the young aspirant, who, it is said, astonished his auditors by glancing at the printed sheet for a few moments, and then playing the piece through with the music turned upside down before him. About 1802 he was brought to London by the celebrated tenor Vagnoni, who heard him play at Milan, and shortly after, he was engaged as second violin in the King's Theatre orchestra. In 1812 he was leading the orchestra at the Pantheon, where Italian Opera was being played, under the patronage of many of the nobility who had become disgusted with the management of the King's Theatre. The following year with the establishment of the Philharmonic, Spagnoletti became one of the first thirty-eight Associates of that Society, and led a septuor with Vaccari, Lindley, Hill, Petuder, Cramer and Holmes, at one of the first of the season's concerts on Apr. 19, 1813. In 1817 he was leader of the King's Theatre orchestra, and his services were requisitioned by nearly every important orchestral society in London. At the Lenten Oratorios at the King's Theatre, at the Ancient Concerts, at the Philharmonic, at the R.A.M. concerts in the Hanover Square Rooms, at numberless benefit concerts during the season, Spagnoletti invariably led the orchestra, besides which he frequently led quartets at the Philharmonic, and gave a benefit concert in the Argyll Rooms each year. Frequent notices of his performances, 'which were characterised by an excellent and spirited attack,' appear in the Harmonicon between the years 1823 and 1833. When Paganini came to London in 1831, the management proposed to engage another leader for his concerts; but when Paganini heard of this, he immediately demanded that Spagnoletti should be engaged for all his performances, accompanying his request with a well-merited compliment on his abilities. This occasioned some unpleasant feeling between the leader and Laporte, especially when the latter underpaid Spagnoletti for his services at thirteen Paganini concerts. A law-suit ensued, and a letter from Spagnoletti on the subject appeared in the Harmonicon of that year. Spagnoletti was of a modest, retiring disposition, and so ardently devoted to his art that he invariably put it before all private interests, the result of which was his acknowledged pre-eminence as an orchestral leader rather than as a virtuoso.
11One of his last appearances—if not his last—was at Alsager's Queen's Square Select Society on Mar. 28, 1834, some months before his death, when he led the first performance of Cherubini's Requiem in England. For several years he had been in a delicate state of health, owing to two severe strokes of paralysis, and it was a third seizure which deprived him of speech and the use of one side of his body, and to which he eventually succumbed. He was buried beside Madame Spagnoletti in Brompton Cemetery, but all trace of the grave-stone which marked the place where he rested has disappeared. Spagnoletti's favourite violin was a Joseph Guarnerius of excellent tone but poor preservation. It eventually became the property of the late Sir Howard Elphinstone, V.C., at one time comptroller to the household of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh. An engraving of Spagnoletti and Lindley was published by Sharp, after a picture by Mrs. Wigley of Shrewsbury, in 1836. He composed various rather unimportant violin pieces and some songs.
13BIBL.—PARKE, Musical Memoirs; MASON CLARKE, Biog. Dict. Fiddlers, Musical World, vol. ii.; JAMES T. BROWN, Biog. Dict. Mus. Q.-L., The Harmonicon (1823-41), Musical World (1836); W. GARDINER, Music and Friends, Musical Recollections of the last Half Century, chap. iv. vol. i.; T. LAMB PHIPSON, Celebrated Violinists, The Times, and Morning Post, Sept. 26, 1834. E. H.-A.
15SPALDING, ALBERT (b. Chicago, Aug. 15, 1888), American violinist and composer. After study of the violin at the Bologna Conservatorio and in Paris under Lefort, he made his début in Paris in 1905. Following numerous European appearances, his New York début was made with the New York Symphony Society in 1908, and in 1920 he was soloist in that orchestra's first European tour. In 1917-19 he served with the American Expedi-
17¹ Not, as Q.-L. says, in 1761.
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