Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

116 BOCKSTRO EODE
return to England, lie was active as a teacher
and performer in London, being regular accompanist
at the Wednesday ' concerts, ' where
Braham and other eminent singers were to be
heard. At this period he wrote his most popular
and beautiful, song, Queen and ' huntress '
;
and his pianoforte editions of classical and other
operas led the way in popularising that class
of music in an available form for the use of
those who could not read full scores ; and in
his indications of the orchestral instruments
above the music-staves he did much to point
the way towards a general appreciation of
orchestral colour. In the early sixties he left
London for Torquay on account of his mother's
health and his own, and on her death in 1876,
he openly became a member of the Roman
communion. He had been organist and honoraiy
precentor at All Saints' Church, Babbacombe,
from 1867, and won a high position as a teacher.
He published, with T. F. Ravenshaw, a 'Festival
Psalter, adapted to the Gregorian Tones,' in
1863, and 'Accompanying Harmonies to the
Ferial Psalter,' in 1869. These were the firstfruits
of his assiduous study of ancient music,
on which he became the first authority of his
time in England. A couple of valuable textbooks,
on harmony (1881) and counterpoint
(1882) respectively, had a great success, and
in the lattdr part of the first edition of this
Dictionary he wrote a large number of articles
on musical arohseology generally. In the present
day, musical research has been sedulously
carried on in other countries, and it is inevitable
that some of his conclusions should have been
controverted, if not disproved ; but, considering
the state of musical education at the time he
wrote, the value of his contributions to such
subjects as the music of the period which closed
iu 1600, can hardly be exaggerated. He was
too ardent a partisan to be an ideal historian,
but his History of Music for Young Students
(1879) and his larger work A General History
of Music (1886) contain much that is of permanent
value. His Life of Handel (1883) and
Mendelssohn (1884) are fine examples of eulogistic
biography, though they are hardly to be
recommended as embodying a calmly critical
estimate of either composer. In his larger
History he showed that he was, nevertheless,
not above owning himself in the wrong, and
his recantation of certain excessive opinions
expressed by him in the Dictionary against
Wagner's later works was due to true moral
Courage. He conducted a concert of sacred
music of the 16th and 17th centm-ies at the
Inventions Exhibition of 1885, and in 1891
gave up Torquay for London, giving lectures at
the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music,
and holding a class for counterpoint and plainsong
at the latter institution. Here he imparted
the true principles of the ancient music with
great success to many worthy pupils ; and as a
singing-master and teacher of the pianoforte his
method of imparting instruction was remarkably
successful. As a composer, he never quite freed
himself from the powerful influences engendered
by his studies ;
the lovely madrigal, too
'
cruel fair,' was judged unworthy of a prize by
the Madrigal Society on the ground that it was
modelled too closely on Palestrina ;
and his
oratorio, 'The Good Shepherd,' produced at
the Gloucester Festival of 1886 under his own
direction, was found to bear too many traces of
Mendelssohnian influence to deserve success.
In 1891, he collaborated with Canon Scott
Holland in writing the life of his old friend,
Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt an abbreviated edition
came out in 1893, and with Mr. Otto
;
Goldschmidt he wrote a still shorter book,
Jenny Lind, Tier Vocal Art and Culture (partly
reprinted from the biography). For many years
his health had been bad, and he had many
adverse circumstances to contend with. He
fought bravely for all that he held best in art,
and boundless enthusiasm earned him through.
He died in London, July 2, 1895. {Diet, of
Nat. Biog. etc.) M.
RODE, Jacques Piekbe Joseph, a great
violinist, was born at Bordeaux, Feb. 16, 1774.
When eight years of age he came under the
tuition of I'auvel aine, a well-known violinist of
his native town, and studied under him for six
years. In 1788 he was sent to Paris. Here
Punto (or Stich), the famous horn-player, heard
him, and being struck with the boy's exceptional
talent, gave him an introduction to Viotti,
who at once accepted him as his pupil. With
this great master he studied for two years,
and in 1790 made his first public appearance,
when he played Viotti's 13th Concerto at the
Th^&tre de Monsieur with complete success.
Although then but sixteen years of age, he was
appointed leader of the second violins in the
excellent band of the The&tre Feydeau. In
this position, appearing at the same time frequently
as soloist, he remained till 1794, and
then started for his first tour to Holland and
the north of Germany. His success, especially
at Berlin and Hamburg, was great. From the
latter place he sailed for his native town, but
the vessel was compelled by adverse winds to
make for the English coast. So Rode came to
London ;
but he only once appeared in public,
at a concert for a charitable purpose, and left
England again for Holland and Germany. Finally
he returned to France and obtained a professorship
of the violin at the newly established
Conservatoire at Paris. He was solo violin
at the Opera until November 1799. In 1799
he went to Spain, and at Madrid met Boccherini,
who is said to have written the orchestration
for Rode's earlier concertos, especially for that
in' B minor. On his return to Paris in 1800
he was appointed solo-violinist to the First
Consul, and it was at that period that he