Henry Hugh Pierson

Henry Hugh Pierson (12 April 1815 – 28 January 1873) was an English composer resident from 1845 in Germany.

[3] He was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied counterpoint with Thomas Attwood Walmisley.

Although elected Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University in 1844[3] he was made to resign when he did not take up his duties and subsequently based himself in Germany.

The funeral march Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and The Maid of Orleans were his only orchestral compositions to be published in full score (copies of which are held by the Library of Congress amongst other locations), whilst Jerusalem and Faust were only published in vocal score, with no orchestral material seeming to be extant.

Manuscript material for several works does, however, survive including the Romantische Ouverture (orchestral parts, University Of Pennsylvania Library Ms Coll 217), Salve eternum (full score, Royal College of Music, London, RCM MS 502), the funeral march Hamlet (full score, Landesbibliothek Coburg, Ms Mus 364), the first version of the overture to the opera Leila (full score, Landesbibliothek, Coburg, Ms Mus 369) and the opera Leila (57 orchestral and choral parts, University Library [Carl von Ossietzky Music Department], Hamburg, D-Hs/ ND VII 310).