Scan 63
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians Volume 2, 1927
34 lines. Read by computer on 11 September 2026. Printed page 25. See the scan on archive.org.
1DAVY
3His first essay in this direction was the incidental music to T. Dibdin's burletta 'A Pennyworth of Wit' (1796). Davy composed the music for the following dramatic pieces:
5'What a Blunder!' 1800; 'Perouse' (with J. Moorehead), 1801; 'The Brazen Mask' (with Mountain), 1802; 'The Cabinet' (with Braham and others), 1802; 'The Caffres' (with others), 1802; 'Rob Roy,' 1803; 'The Miller's Maid,' 1804; 'Harlequin Quicksilver,' 1804; 'Thirty Thousand' (with Braham and Reeve), 1805; 'Spanish Dollars,' 1805; 'Harlequin's Magnet,' 1805; 'The Blind Boy,' 1808; 'The Farmer's Wife' (with others), 1814; 'Rob Roy Macgregor,' 1818; 'Woman's Will a Riddle' 1820. Also an overture and other music for Shakespeare's Tempest, performed in conjunction with the songs of Purcell, Arne and Linley.
7W. H. H.
9DAVY, RICHARD (late 15th and early 16th cent.), English composer, chiefly of church music, entered Magdalen College, Oxford, c. 1483 1 and was organist and master of the choristers there from 1490–92. A 'Libri computi' for 1491–92 at Magdalen contains a reference to a payment of 13s. 4d. to
11'Ricardo Davys pro stallo suo, et informacione choristarum, et pro media parte melodie organorum.' 2
13In 1497 he was ordained priest, and in 1501 became chaplain to Sir William Boleyn, the grandfather of Anne Boleyn. He was chaplain to Sir Thomas Boleyn (the son of Sir William) from 1506–15, after which there is no mention of him. 3 An early 16th-century MS. in the Eton College Library contains the following 5-part motets (hymns to the Virgin) by Davy:
15'In honore summe matris,' 'O Domine celi terque,' Salve Jesu, Salve Regina, Stabat Mater, 'Virgo templum Trinitatis.'
17The MS. now only contains 43 complete pieces, but the index shows that it originally contained 97. The missing compositions (either wholly or in part) include four by Davy. Of these there is an imperfect 'Gaude flore virginali' and portions of a 4-part Passion for Palm Sunday. The latter is interesting, since it is almost certainly the earliest example of Passion music in England, and is particularly notable in that the utterances of the 'turba' or crowd are given to the chorus, whereas the 15th- and 16th-century tradition was that they should be sung by an alto. Four of these choruses were completed, and three others missing were composed by R. R. Terry when the Passion was performed at Westminster Cathedral during Holy Week, 1921. Sir R. Terry refers to the Passion as displaying 'a high standard of contrapuntal technique' and as being 'expressive, virile and dramatic.' Single parts of a motet by Davy are in the University and St. John's College libraries at Cambridge, and the medius part of another ('Virgo templum'—probably the same as that in the Eton MS.) is in the British Museum (Harl. 1709/35). Two 3-part carols, 'Ah blessid Jhesu' and 'Ah my hart remembir,' are in the Fayrfax MS. (B.M. Add. MSS. 5465). The same MS. also contains some secular partsongs by Davy: the tenor part of 'Nowe the lawe is led' (a 2), and the score of another in 3 parts, 'Jhoone's sike'—with second section beginning 'She is my litell praty on.'
19J. MK.
21DAWSON, FREDERICK (b. Leeds, July 16, 1868), a pianist of ability who studied with Hallé, Dannreuther, Klindworth, Pachmann and Anton Rubinstein. He was 10 years old when his ability to play the whole of 'Das Wohltemperirte Klavier' from memory brought him to the notice of Hallé. He made his mark at the Monday and Saturday Popular Concerts (St. James's Hall), the Crystal Palace, Philharmonic and other leading English concerts, and undertook recital tours in Europe. Having studied the works of Grieg with the composer, he played the concerto at the Grieg concert given by the Philharmonic Society in 1897, and introduced both the Brahms concertos in a programme conducted by Klindworth at St. James's Hall in 1898. His enterprise in the matter of repertory was further exemplified in the fact that he gave Mackenzie's Scottish concerto in Berlin in 1902. A pianist in the large style, his reputation stood high in continental cities, especially Vienna and Berlin, though in later years his appearances at home and abroad have been comparatively few owing to ill-health.
23DAY, ALFRED, M.D. (b. London, Jan. 1810; d. there, Feb. 11, 1849), author of an important Treatise on Harmony. He followed the medical profession, practising in London, but his pronounced musical sympathies led him to study musical theory with remarkable thoroughness, and he formed the idea of making a complete and consistent theory of harmony. His book was published in 1845.
25His analysis of the foundations of classical harmony was very elaborate, and out of the chaos of rules and exceptions, which clouded rather than illuminated the text-books of his day, he evolved a system which was sufficiently convincing to meet with the approval of practising musicians like Macfarren, who made it the basis of his methods of teaching.
27Day's most important contributions to the progress of harmonic theory were his division of styles into Strict or Diatonic and Free or Chromatic, and his discussion of the discords which can be used without preparation. By his analysis of harmonies he was able to develop powerful arguments in favour of the classification of many chromatic discords under a single key system, a simplification of method which offered outstanding advantages. This is not the place to discuss his hypotheses in detail, or to weigh the objections that have been taken to some of them. There were few theorists who did not follow him at least some part of the way, and his work had a decided influence on the generation of teachers which succeeded him.
29DAY, MAJOR CHARLES RUSSELL (b. 1860; d. 1900), an authority on Indian music.
311 W. H. Grattan Flood, Mus. T., Aug. 1921.
322 W. Barclay Squire in Archæologia, vol. lvi.
333 W. H. Grattan Flood.
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