Henry Hugh Pierson


Henry Hugh Pierson was an English composer resident from 1845 in Germany. He was born Henry Hugh Pearson and his middle name is sometimes given as Hugo. His original name was Henry Hugh Pearson, in Germany he used Heinrich Hugo Pierson. He had success in his adopted country with his operas and songs but little in his own, and his music is now rarely performed.

Life

Pierson was the son of a clergyman, Hugh Nicholas Pearson. He was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied counterpoint with Thomas Attwood Walmisley. From 1839 to 1844 he studies music in Germany; he also studied in Prague with Václav Tomášek. His amorous adventures included an apparent liaison with Mary Shelley, before he married in 1844. Although elected to a professorship at Edinburgh University he was made to resign when he did not take up his duties and subsequently based himself in Germany. Hubert Parry took lessons with him in 1867.

Compositions (selective list)

Many of Pierson's manuscript full and vocal scores, including those of his oratorios and operas, appear not to have survived. The funeral march Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and The Maid of Orleans were his only orchestral compositions to be published in full score, whilst Jerusalem and Faust were only published in vocal score, with no orchestral material seeming to be extant. His operas remained unpublished, excepting the libretti. Manuscript material for several works does, however, survive including the Romantische Ouverture, Salve eternum, the funeral march Hamlet, the first version of the overture to the opera Leila and the opera Leila.

Orchestral works