Martin Edward Fallas ShawOBEFRCM (9 March 1875 – 24 October 1958) was an English composer, conductor, and (in his early life) theatre producer. His over 300 published works include songs, hymns, carols, oratorios, several instrumental works, a congregational mass setting (the Anglican Folk Mass), and four operas including a ballad opera.
Biography
Shaw delighted in describing himself as a cockney,[1] a title he could claim under Samuel Rowlands' definition of one born within the sound of the Bow Bells.[2] Born 9 March 1875,[3] he was the eldest of nine children, son of the Bohemian and eccentric[4] James Fallas Shaw (1842–1907), composer of church music and organist of Hampstead parish church and Charlotte Elizabeth Shaw, née James (1850–1912). He was the elder brother of the composer and influential educator Geoffrey Shaw and the actor Julius "Jules" Brinkley Shaw (born in 1882, Clapham, Surrey now South West London), whose career was cut short by the First World War – he was killed in March 1918. He studied under Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music, together with a generation of composers that included Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and John Ireland. He then embarked upon a career as a theatrical producer, composer and conductor, the early years of which he described as "a long period of starving along".[5] However, he began his career as an organist, serving at Emmanuel Church, West Hampstead, from 1895 to 1903.
He proposed to Edith Craig, Craig's sister, in 1903 and was accepted. Edy was a successful, prolific but now largely forgotten theatre director, producer, costume designer and early pioneer of the women's suffrage movement in England. The marriage was prevented by Ellen Terry, out of jealousy for her daughter's affection, and by Christabel Marshall (Christopher St John), with whom Edith lived from 1899, according to Michael Holroyd in his book A Strange Eventful History (2008).[7] A thinly fictionalised account of this episode appears in St John's autobiographical novel Hungerheart: The Story of a Soul (1915).
Shaw then toured Europe as conductor to Isadora Duncan, extensively described in his 1929 autobiography Up to Now published by Oxford University Press.[5][8] During this period he gave music lessons and took posts as organist and director of music, first at St Mary's, Primrose Hill, where his vicar was Percy Dearmer 1908 or 1909 – 1920, later at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London 1920 – 1924. He was also master of music at the Guildhouse, London.
After his marriage to Joan Lindley Cobbold (1890–1974) in 1916, he settled down to family life. The couple had three children: John Fallas Cobbold Shaw (1917–1973), Richard Brinkley Shaw (1920–1989), and Mary Elizabeth Shaw (1923–1977).[9] Under the influence of his wife, and faced with the need to support his family, church music gradually became the focus of his life and work.[citation needed] In 1918 he co-founded the League of Arts, the Royal School of Church Music and was an early organiser of hymn festivals. He did much editorial and executive work in connection with popularising music, the encouragement of community singing and raising standards of choral singing in small parish churches.
His published works include over 100 songs (some of them for children), settings for soli, chorus and orchestra of Laurence Binyon's Sursum Corda, Eleanor Farjeon's The Ithacans, John Masefield's The Seaport and her Sailors; a ballad opera by Clifford Bax, Mr Pepys, and Water Folk, written for the Worcester Music Festival held in September 1932. He composed the music for T.S. Eliot's pageant play, The Rock, (performed at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in May 1934), making him the only composer Eliot ever allowed to set his words to music. He later became the first editor of National Anthems of the World, published after his death.
His oratorioThe Redeemer, for SATB soloists, chorus and full orchestra, was first broadcast by the BBC in March 1945. His cantata God's Grandeur, to words by Gerard Manley Hopkins, was composed for the first Aldeburgh Festival, receiving its first performance in the same concert as the premiere of Britten's St Nicholas.[5]
Working with Percy Dearmer, Martin was music editor of The English Carol Book (1913, 1919) and, with Ralph Vaughan Williams, of Songs of Praise (1925, 1931) and The Oxford Book of Carols (1928). His tune Little Cornard is sung to Hills of the North Rejoice, and Marching is sung to Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow. While doing research for the English Hymnal (1906) in the British Library, he came upon the traditional Gaelic hymn-tune Bunessan[citation needed] in L. McBean's Songs and Hymns of the Gael, published in 1900. However, the tune was not included in the English Hymnal. It was used instead in the second edition of Songs of Praise (1931), set to the poem Morning Has Broken, which Martin Shaw commissioned specially from his old friend Eleanor Farjeon. This tune and words became a No. 1 hit for Cat Stevens in 1972. Martin Shaw also noted down the Czech carol Rocking and included it in The Oxford Book of Carols.
The following is a list of Shaw's theatrical productions, music for plays, cantatas and songs. Authors or collaborators are listed after the name of the production or piece in brackets. Publishers or performance venues are listed where known. A fuller list of works including editorial work, instrumental pieces, and sacred music can be seen at Musicweb International[11]
1904 Over the Mountains (traditional) [2 part song] – Novello
1904 The Jolly Shepherd (John Wootton) [S.A., p.f.] – Joseph Williams
1904 The Fairies Escape [SS song for female voices, p.f. acc.] – Joseph Williams
1904 Weep you no More Sad Fountains [S.A. with p.f. acc.] – Joseph Williams
1913–1920
1913 England, My England (W. E. Henley) [chorus for TTBB] – Boosey
1914 6 Songs of War published by Humphrey Milford at Oxford University Press (OUP) 1: Battle song of the Fleet at Sea (Stella Callaghan) 2: Called Up (Dudley Clark) 3: England for Flanders (C. W. Brodribb) 4: Erin United (C.W. Brodribb) 5: Carillons (tr. From the French by D. Bonnard) 6: Venizel (W. A. Short)
1917 Orange and Green (arr. Of AP Graves words to "Lillibulero") – Curwen
1917 Six Songs published by Curwen: 1: Bird or Beast (Christina Rossetti) 2: Easter Carol (Christina Rossetti) 3: The Land of Heart's Desire (Yeats) 4: Over the Sea (Christina Rossetti) 5: not currently known 6: Summer (Christina Rossetti)
1917 Song of the Palanquin Bearers republished – Curwen
1917 Lied der Sänftentrager [German translation of "Palanquin Bearers"] – Universal Edition
1918 Serenade (Diana Gardner) – Curwen
1918 Two Songs from Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) – (Evans: 3rd Bk of the School Concert) 1: You are Old Father William 2: Will You Walk a Little Faster
1918 The Bird of God (Kingsley) [2 part song] – Arnold
1918 The Frogge and the Mouse (Deuteromelia) [2 part song] – Curwen
1937 Song: An Airman's Te Deum (F. McN. Foster) – Curwen
1938 Come away, Death (Shakespeare) [SATB] – Novello
1939 Choir Songs: Thursday's Child (Christopher Fry) [Unison Songs] – Cramer 1: A Song of Life 2: Leaving School 3: What is a House 4: Cooking 5: Housework 6: Rub-a-dub-dub 7: Ploughing 8: Sowing 9: Harvest
1939 Two songs for Juniors – Cramer: 1: The Rain, 2: The Stream
1939 The Mountain and the Squirrel – Cramer
1939 The Caravan – Cramer
1940 Song: Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth (A. H. Clough) [Unison] – Musical Times; Novello
1941 – 1954
1941 Drake's Drum (Sir Henry Newbolt) [Unison] – Cramer
1941 The Airmen (Margaret Armour, from The Times, 28 May 1940) – Cramer
1942 Song: Jack Overdue (J. Pudney) – Cramer
1944 The Path of Duty (Tennyson) [unison] – Novello
1948 Kitty of Coleraine (anon) [arr. TTBB ] – Boosey and Hawkes
1948 My Bonny Cuckoo [arr. SSA] – Cramer
1948 Oft in the Stilly Night (Thomas Moore) [arr. Tenor solo & TTBB] – Boosey and Hawkes
1948 The Elves (arr. SSA) – Cramer
1952 Coronation Song (E. Montgomery Campbell) [Unison] – Cramer
1954 The Sweet of the Year (George Meredith) [2 part song] – OUP
Posthumous publications
1987 Martin Shaw, Seven Songs for Voice and Piano – Stainer and Bell 1: Annabel Lee 2: Cargoes 3: No. 4: When Daisies Pied 5: The Cuckoo 6: Song of the Palanquin Bearers 7: Down by the Salley Gardens
1969 Garden of Earthly Delights based on work by Philip Rosseter and arranged by Mont Campbell on the album Arzachel by Prog Rock group Uriel
References
^Shaw, Martin (1929). Up To Now. Oxford University Press. p. 1.
