Thomas Shaw, also known as Thomas Shaw Jr, was an English violinist, violist, clarinettist and composer who was born c.1752, probably in Bath. His earliest performances took place in Bath and Bristol, but the majority of his career was spent at the Drury Lane theatre in London as an instrumentalist, violin soloist, band leader, musical director and in-house composer. He later moved to Paris and probably died there on 28 June 1827 or c.1830.
Early life
Born around 1752, Thomas Shaw Jr was the son of Thomas Shaw of Bath, musician, concert director and member of the Royal Society of Musicians. Shaw Jr's elder brother was the violinist Anthony Shaw. Their father appears to have lived a long life, being described as superannuated in his obituary.
Career
Early performances Shaw Jr gave his earliest known performance in Bath in April 1769 when he was about seventeen. Around this time, he led the orchestra in Thomas Linley's subscription concerts of the autumn 1769 and spring 1770, and was a member of the theatre band in 1771. In addition, his music was being performed and published; an overture composed by him was played in a concert at the end of December 1771 and by 1772 he was playing his own compositions in Bath and Bristol.
He performed in the area until 1774, with his last known local performances in Bristol and Bath. According to musicologist Peter Holman, Shaw remained active as a violinist there until 1776–77.
Tension with Thomas Linley Shaw was described by the press as a talented instrumentalist who played the violin "in a very masterly Manner and with much Taste". This allegedly led to competition with Thomas Linley (junior), with the press comparing the two violinists. While Shaw was considered 'the most perfect Master of the Fingerboard", Linley was deemed to have "a graceful Manner of bowing" and "a 'Polish' of Tone and Manner".
Allegedly, the underlying tension was due to the quasi-monopoly the Linley family had over concert life in Bath and Bristol. According to historians, Shaw joined the ranks and became a leading member of the breakaway group of musicians headed by William Herschel, which began to challenge the Linleys' hold. During the spring of 1772, Herschel and Shaw gave a certain number of concerts together, Shaw on the violin and Herschel on the fortepiano.
On Thursday 4 June 1772 and on Thursday 11 June 1772 the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette advertised the following:BRISTOL. AT the Aſſembly-Room in Princeſs-Street, on Thurſday Evening the 11th of June, under the Conduct of Mr. HERSCHEL and Mr. SHAW, jun. will be a CONCERTO SPIRITUALE Or, SACRED PERFORMANCE. Conſiſting of the famous MISERERE of Signior Gregorio Allegri, ſung at the Pope's Chapel in Rome on good Friday, with the ſolemn POPULE MEUS of Petrus Aloyſius Preneſtinus (performed but once in England). Also Part of the celebrated STABAT MATER of Signior Auriſchio and Pergoleſi. with Choruſes from the Psalms of Sig. Benedetto Marcello, with Inſtrumental Accompaniments, by Mr. Herſchell. The principal Vocal Parts by the two Signora's Farinelli; a Concerto on the Hautboy by Mr. Herſchel; the firſt Violin, and a Solo by Mr. Shaw, jun. The Chorus from Bath, Wells, Bristol, &c – To begin at Half paſt Six o'Clock. Tickets, at 5s. each, to be had at the American, Exchange, and Aſſembly Coffee-Houſes; where alſo may be had, Books of the Performance, with an English Tranſlation of the Latin Part, at 6d. each.
On Thursday 17 December 1772 the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette published an advertisement for another concert by the Herschel/Shaw duo in Bath; this time, for the benefit of the 20 year old Shaw himself: AT the Old Aſſembly Rooms, on TUESDAY, Dec. 22, will be a CONCERT of Vocal and Inſtrumental Muſic, for Mr. SHAW, Jun. The Vocal Part by Signora FARINELLI, and Maſter PECK. The Firſt Violin by Mr. SHAW, Jun. The Hautboy by Mr. FISCHER. And the Harpſichord by Mr. HERSCHEL. To begin at a Quarter paſt Six o'Clock. - Particulars of the Concert will be inſerted in the Bills. Tickets to be had of Mr. SHAW, Jun. in Duke-Street, at Mr. Gydes Rooms, the Bookſellers and Coffee-Houſes, at Five Shillings each.
Around 1776, Shaw decided to seek a more promising future in London, his brother Anthony was already working there as a musician. Shaw was then still in his early 20s and had already been in contact with London audiences when he played some of his music at the Vauxhall Gardens in 1773.
The tensions and difficulties with the Linleys might have played a part in his decision to leave Bath; though, even in London, he would be employed by them and would be working alongside them (especially Linley Sen., William Linley and Sheridan).
By 1778, Shaw Jr was a regular London player, performing in the band at Drury Lane theatre and the Haymarket. In September 1780, aged 28, he was recommended for membership of the Royal Society of Musicians.
Career in London
Documents show that during the early 1790s, Shaw was employed a few times at the Vauxhall Gardens as musician and composer. He may have worked there many more times, but the sources are patchy and may not reflect the true extent of his activities there.
Shaw was employed as leader of the band for "A Grand Selection" concert on Friday 15 February 1793 at the King's Opera House Haymarket. As per its title, the event, conducted by Linley Sr and Arnold, included a vast array of music from Purcell to Mozart, and including Handel, Vinci, Paisiello, T. Arne, Linley, Arnold.
Shaw played on the violin the obbligato part, originally for transverse flute, in the aria Sweet Bird from Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, accompanying Mrs Ferguson's first performance on Wednesday 6 March 1793 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. At the same theatre during August and September 1793, his violin skills were once again put on show as he accompanied, for her first appearance on the London stage, singer Miss Gopell of Bath, by playing the obbligato part in the aria Sweet Echo from the afterpiece Comus.
At the Drury Lane By 1778, Shaw had joined the band at the Drury Lane theatre in London. He started leading the band in March 1786, at the occasion of the premiere of Redemption (a pasticcio oratorio made out of works by Handel and Samuel Arnold), and he seems to have retained that post for about 23 years, until 1809.
His violin playing was put on show regularly there, playing, for instance, the obligato parts accompanying the singers in pieces like Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato or executing fully fledged violin concertos in between parts of entertainments or oratorios like Messiah.
As early as 1786, Shaw's role, beyond leading the band and playing solos, involved overall musical direction; indeed, in his Reminiscences, Michael Kelly recounts how during a rehearsal for the English adaptation of Grétry's Richard Coeur-de-lion, in which the celebrated tragedian John Philip Kemble sang the main character, Shaw "called out from the orchestra", reproaching "dear Mr Kemble" for "murdering the time", to which the latter, "calmly, and coolly taking a pinch of snuff," replied that "it [was] better for [him] to murder time at once than be continually beating him as [Shaw] did".Kelly, Michael. Reminiscences of Michael Kelly of the King's Theatre and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Including a Period of Nearly Half a Century with Original Anecdotes of Many Distinguished Persons, Political, Literary, and Musical, Volume 1. London: Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street (1826). pp. 289-291. Roger Fiske remarks though that Charles Dibdin "thought him a much better leader than Covent Garden's Baumgarten".
In addition to the above roles of soloist, band leader and musical director, Shaw composed music for the Drury Lane theatre's productions. His first such work appears to have been the 1789 afterpiece opera The Island of Saint Marguerite, whose music was partly composed and partly compiled by Shaw.
Other music composed by Shaw for Drury Lane includes chamber music, piano sonatas, a violin concerto as well as various pieces of operatic music (overtures, airs, songs, choruses, marches, vocal duets and trios). His operatic music was either composed as incidental music to new productions, used in lieu of older numbers in reprisal of works by other composers, or inserted in pasticcios.
He wrote an overture and other instrumental interludes for the revival of Michael Arne's Cymon in 1791. According to advertisements both the overture to The Island of Saint Marguerite and the instrumental pieces for Cymon were published in parts, but they seem to have mostly survived in keyboard arrangements, except for a Spiritoso interlude and the Marches in the Procession for which a full score still exists. Thereafter Shaw composed only the occasional song for Drury Lane, even though he later became one of the theatre's proprietors. In 1792, Shaw was still employed by the theatre as 'leader of the band', whilst Linley Sr. was the official 'composer to theatre' and one of the proprietors, and, as late as 1797–1800, Shaw was still employed in the same capacity, whilst, by then, William Linley, had succeeded his father as 'composer to theatre'.
A Grand Selection of Sacred Music from the Works of Handel concert took place on Wednesday 12 March 1794 at the Drury Lane theatre, the stage of which, for the occasion, was decorated to resemble "a Gothic Cathedral, with illuminated stained glass windows". As per his employment status, Shaw took part as leader of the band, playing under the direction of Linley Sr and Stephen Storace. Among the vocal soloists was the internationally known soprano Nancy Storace.
Due to his tenure with the Drury Lane, Shaw was mentioned in The Pin-basket, to the Children of Thespis. A satire, a satirical poem about Londonian theatre life by the critic John Williams whose alter ego, Anthony Pasquin, wonders "who can go see" or "endure" the Drury Lane's plays, actors, and singers [...][...] and SHAW* on catgut scrape his sharps and flats, To moral mice and sentimental rats. [...] a Violent Democrat, leader of the Drury-Lane band, and one of the Dictators of that Republic. The Island of St Marguerite
The various events that constitute the French Revolution, from the fall of the Bastille to the imprisonment and subsequent execution of the royal couple, as well as the contemporary Anglo-French wars, were a source of both dread and fascination in Britain, and, as such, inspired musical responses by British composers. Shaw's and John St John's The Island of Saint Marguerite (aka The Island of St Marguerite or The Island of Marguerite ) may have been one of the first such works as it premiered on 13 November 1789, barely four months after the storming of the Bastille which is the event that inspired it.
According to musicologist Mary Térey-Smith, Shaw's opera was meant to be called "The Iron Mask" in reference to the Bastille prison (the famous mysterious prisoner died there in 1703), but "the Lord Chamberlain's Office objected to the political content." However, as explained in the review of the show's premiere by the European Magazine and London Review of December 1789, much more than the originally intended title was changed and indeed all references to the recent events in France were censored and removed from the piece:
This perſormance, we are told, was originally deſigned for a repreſentation oſ the aſſault and deſtruction oſ the Baſtile, with which was blended the ſtory of the Iron Maſk; but when it came beſore the Licencer, every part oſ the piece that bore immediate reſemblance to the late popular events in Paris, was from political conſiderations forbidden, and therefore is unavoidably brought forward a maimed and mutilated ſtate.