Bertram Shapleigh

Bertram Lincoln Shapleigh (15 January 1871 – 2 July 1940) was an American composer, heavily interested in the culture of Asia.

Bertram Shapleigh and his wife in their English home, "Weird Wood", from a 1907 publication. In the background, his library, which was lost in a fire some years later.

Education

He studied composition with G.E. Whiting and George Whitefield Chadwick at the New England Conservatory; graduating in 1891. He continued his studies with Edward MacDowell in the United States, and gave piano recitals and accompanied singers in the Boston area.^[1][2][3] He also studied in France and Germany.

A man of wide interests, he entered the Vermont Medical College, graduating with an MD degree in 1893.

Career

He became a lecturer on the arts, but a developing concern with South Asian music that led him to give his attention fully to music and to composition. He played the piano and cello, and gave lecture-recitals on music history, Eastern music and Wagner’s operas.^[4] In 1898 he left the United States for Europe, living in Cologne and Brussels,^[5] eventually settling in Longfield, Kent in his home he named "Weird Wood".^[6][7] He became an editor for Breitkopf & Härtel. However, after his house, with his library of 7000 volumes, had been destroyed by fire, he returned to the USA in 1917, settling in Chicago and then Washington DC,^[8] to serve as an adviser to Breitkopf & Härtel and editor of the Concert Exchange. He lectured widely, wrote for magazines and newspapers, published three books of poetry and a novel, and composed numerous pieces in various forms. His works are in a Romantic style, sometimes using themes and timbres imitative of Indian music.

He was a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music, Associate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He advertised for Dresden's Paul Werner pianos.^[9]

Legacy

In 1887, as a satirical response to a rise in Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship, Justin Winsor wrote a pamphlet titled "Was Shakespeare Shapleigh? A Correspondence in Two Entanglements". This pamphlet lampooned Ignatius Donnelly's The Great Cryptogram by proposing a fictional Sir William Shapleigh as author, who moved to America in 1636.^[10] Winsor's joke was given accidental credence and media attention when Bertram Shapleigh was mistaken for Shakespeare (and also Hall Caine) while vacationing in Morocco in 1904.^[11]

After his death in 1940, a Bertram Shapleigh Foundation was established in Washington, DC, and his manuscripts are deposited there. Cellist Paul Olefsky was its musical director; through it the foundation purchased Marie Roemaet Rosanoff's Stradivarius cello for Paul Olfesky's lifetime use,^[12] and sponsored many musical performances (including of Shapleigh's music), including the first Emanuel Feuermann Memorial International Cello Solo Competition.^[13][14]

Selected compositions

Shapleigh wrote a number of orchestral works, some including choir; several operas; church music; many songs, and a string quartet, among other chamber works.

• Eldorado (published c.1900 by Edwin Ashdown), song setting of the Edgar Allan Poe poem^[15]
• Fitne's Song (Fitnes Gesang), words translated from German by Shapleigh's wife.^[16]
• Home Thoughts from Abroad, song setting of Robert Browning's poem.^[17]
• Metamorphosis for orchestra
• A Night in Kamtchatka (Eine Nacht auf Kamtschatka), words translated from German by Shapleigh's wife^[16]
• Ramayana, an Indian suite for soloists, iano, and orchestra^[18]
• The Raven, a cantata on Poe's poem^[19]
• The Regiment Passes (published c.1900 by Edwin Ashdown), words by Robert W. Chambers^[20]
• Rhapsody, for cello and piano
• Romance of the Year, op. 53 for four solo voices and piano, words by Shapleigh's wife.^[21] Twelve stanzas in the mood the twelve months of the year, in solo, duets, and quartets.
• The Song of the Dervishes, for chorus and orchestra, premiered in 1907 by the Wolverhampton Festival Choral Society.^[22]
• Three English Songs, op. 49. Settings of Hugh Clough's "Green Fields o' England" and Robert Browning's "O to be in England", and Wordsworth's "I travelled among unknown men"^[23]
• Three Little Songs^[24]