Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SPAGNOLETTI SPARK 629
brought to London by the celebrated tenor
Vagnoni, who heard him play at Milan, and
shortly after, he was engaged as second violin
in the King's Theatre orchestra. In 1812 he
was leading the orchestra at the Pantheon, where
Italian Opera was being played, under the
patronage of many of the nobility who had become
disgusted with the management of the
King's Theati-e. The following year with the
establishment of the Philharmonic, Spagnoletti
became one of the first thirty-eight Associates
of that Society, and led a Septuor with Vaccari,
Lindley, Hill, Petuder, Cramer, and Holmes,
at one of the first of the season's concerts on
April 19, 1813. In 1817 he was leader of the
King's Theatre orchestra, and his services were
requisitioned by nearly every important orchestral
society in London. At the Lenten Oratorios
at the King's Theatre, at the Ancient Concerts,
at the Philharmonic, at the Royal Academy of
Music concerts in the Hanover Square Rooms,
at numberless benefit concerts during the season,
Spagnoletti invariably led the orchestra, besides
which he frequently led Quartets at the Philharmonic,
and gave a benefit concert in the
Argyll Rooms each year. Frequent notices of
his performances, which ' were characterised by
an excellent and spirited attack,' appear in
the Harmonieon between the years 1823 and
1833. When Paganini came to London in
1831, the management proposed to engage
another leader for his concerts ; but when the
Genoese virtuoso heard of this, he immediately
demanded that Spagnoletti should be engaged
for all his performances, accompanying his
request with a well-merited compliment on his
abilities. This occasioned some unpleasant
feelingbetween the leader and Laporte, especially
when the latter underpaid Spagnoletti for his
services at thirteen Paganini concerts. A lawsuit
ensued, and a letter from Spagnoletti on
the subject appeared in the Harirumicon of that
year. Spagnoletti was of a modest, retiring
disposition, and so ardently devoted to his art
that he invariably put it before all private
interests, the result of which was his acknowledged
pre-eminence as an orchestral leader rather
than as a virtuoso. One of his last appearances
if not his last—was at Mr. Alsager's ' Queen's
Square Select Society ' on March 28, 1834, some
months before his death, when he led the firat
'
performance of Chernbini's Requiem ' in England.
For several years he had been in a delicate
state of health, owing to two severe strokes of
paralysis, and it was a third seizure which
deprived him of speech and the use of one side
of his body, and to which he eventually
succumbed. He was buried beside Madame
Spagnoletti in Brompton Cemetery, but all
trace of the grave -stone which marked the
place where he rested has disappeared. Spagnoletti's
favourite violin was a Joseph Guarnerius
of excellent tone but poor preservation. It
eventually became the property of the late Sir
Howard Elphinstone, V.C, at one time comptroller
to the household of H.R.H. the Duke
of Edinburgh. An engi-aving of Spagnoletti and
Lindley was published by Sharp, after a picture
by Mrs. Wigley of Shrewsbury, in 1836. He
composed various rather unimportant violin
pieces andsome songs. Vaxiie, MusicalMemoirs
Mason Clarke, Biog. Diet. Fiddlers, Mtosical
World, vol. ii. ; James T. Brown, £iog. Diet.
Mus., Qiuillen-Lemkon, The Harmonieon (from
1823 to 1841), Mudeal JForld (1836) ; W.
Gardiner, Music arid Friends, Musical Becollections
of the last Half Century, chap. iv. vol. i. ; T.
Lamb Phipson, Celebrated Violinists, The Times,
and Morning Post, Sept. 26, 1834. B. H-A.
SPARK, William, Mus.D., son of a lay-vicar
of Exeter Cathedral, was bom at Exeter, Oct. 28,
1823. He became a chorister there, and in
1840 was articled for five years to Dr. S. Sebastian
Wesley. On Wesley's leaving Exeter for the
Parish Church, Leeds, his pupil went with him,
and soon became deputy -organist of the parish
church, and organist of the churches of Chapeltown
and St. Paul's successively. He was
next chosen organist to Tiverton, Devon, and
Daventry, Northampton ;
and on Wesley's removal
to Winchester, in 1850, was appointed to
St. George's Church, Leeds. His activity in
Leeds, outside his own parish, was remarkable.
Within a year of his appointment he founded
the Leeds Madrigal and Motet Society, and the
People's Concerts, held in the Town Hall, just
then built. [Municipal business had long required
a new ToT\'n Hall, the central portion of
which has ever since served the city for its chief
concert-room.] The organ wjis built by Gray &
Davison, from the designs of Henry Smart and
Spark. The hall was opened April 1, 1859, and
after a severe competition Spark was elected the
Borough organist, a post he held until his death,
which took place in Leeds on June 16, 1897.
He took his degree as Doctor of Music at Dublin
in 1861. In 1869 he started the 'Organists'
Quarterly Journal ' (Novello). It was followed
by the Practical Choir-master (Metzler), and in
1881 by a biography of Henry Smart (Reeves,
8vo). [Musical Memoirs (1888), and Musical
Reminiscences (1892), contain an amusing
picture of his time, and he did good work
in many Yorkshire towns as a lecturer on
music] He also published three cantatas,
various anthems, services, glees, and other
compositions.
[His brother, Frederick Robert Spark, born
Feb. 26, 1831, became editor and publisher of
the Leeds Express in the fifties. He was
oflBcially connected with the Leeds Festival
from its commencement in 1858, being honorary
secretary from 1877. After the festival of 1907
he retired from active service, and was presented
with a portrait of himself painted by Sir
George Eeid. He is joint author, with Joseph