Robert Lucas Pearsall

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Lay a Garland

"Lay a garland" is a popular English poem from the play The Maid's Tragedy, written in 1608-11. The song is sung by Aspasia where her betrothed is forced into a marriage of convenience to the king's mistress. Listen to it here:



Text:
Lay a garland on her hearse
of dismal yew. 
Maidens, willow branches wear,
says she died true.
Her love was false, but she was firm
Upon her buried body lie
lightly, thou gentle earth. 

Robert Lucas de Pearsall – Wikipedia
Robert Lucas Pearsall (14 March 1795 - 5 August 1856), English composer of mainly vocal music

Pearsall was born at Clifton in Bristol into a wealthy family. His father, Richard Pearsall was an army officer and an amateur musician.  

Pearsall married Harriet Eliza Hobday in 1817 and they had four children together. In their early years of marriage, Pearsall practised as a barrister in Bristol, but in 1825 he took his family to live abroad: first to Mainz, then to Karlsruhe. In 1842, evidently after a long period of strain in their relationship,  husband and wife separated. With the money from selling their previous house, Pearsall bought Wartensee Castle, a ruined medieval keep near Rorschach in Switzerland. After purchasing the castle, he spent several years restoring the keep and building a suite of apartments adjacent to it. He remained there until his death and was buried in the vault of the castle chapel. 

It would appear that Pearsall was self-taught when he wrote his earliest attempts. Pearsall's move abroad brought opportunities to develop his interests as a composer, including some compositional tuition. Though resident abroad, he kept in touch with his home city of Bristol. Pearsall's last visit to his hometown of Willsbridge coincided with the foundation and earliest meetings of Bristol Madrigal Society, for which many of the madrigals and part songs he wrote in the period 1836-1841 were composed.  The success of his earliest works for the society encouraged him to write others, including "Lay a Garland". However, Pearsall was an amateur composer and many of his compositions were not published until after his death, and even now, many remain in manuscript. 

Sources: Wikipedia




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