Why do the Roses - Robert Lucas Pearsall

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Why do the Roses – Robert Lucas Pearsall
Sung by ‘Viva la Musica’, East Midlands Chamber Choir (Jo Boddison, soprano)
📶https://www.vivalamusica.org.uk/
Conducted by Simon Lumby📶https://www.simonlumby.co.uk/

Recorded live in Bishop Street Methodist Church – Saturday 18th March 2023

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Robert Lucas Pearsall (1795-1856) was born at Clifton Hill, Bristol, into a wealthy Quaker family. His father was an army officer and amateur musician. He was privately educated and practiced as a barrister in Bristol. In 1825, after suffering a stroke, he took his family to live abroad. He sold the family estate in Willsbridge and, in 1842, bought the Schloss Wartensee, a ruined medieval keep near Rorschach in Switzerland and spent several years restoring it. He remained there until his death.

Pearsall was an amateur composer and many of his compositions were not published until after his death. He is best remembered for his part-songs and madrigals but also wrote orchestral works, anthems, services, musical treatises, and edited a Catholic hymnal. He kept in touch with his home city of Bristol and wrote many pieces for the Bristol Madrigal Society. He also composed poetry, some of which he used for his madrigals, such as ‘Why Do the Roses’ and ‘Why should the cuckoo’s tuneful note’. The particle de often spelled in his name is a feature added after his death by his daughter Philippa.

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Text:

Why do the roses whisper to the wind, and toss their heads so high?
O gentle zephyr, tell me what they said as you passed by.
Say, do they look with envy at the bloom,
On Flora’s cheek that glows?
O well they know it mantles there,
Surpassing any rose.