Christopher Shaw (composer)


Christopher Shaw was a British composer.
Shaw was born and lived in London, and studied at New College, Oxford, from 1942 through 1944 with R. O. Morris and Herbert Kennedy Andrews. He wrote principally choral music, of which the most notable example may be the cantata Peter and the Lame Man for soli, chorus and orchestra. He also wrote some music criticism and translated opera librettos. Shaw was reluctant to promote his own music and much of his work remained unperformed in his lifetime and since his death. The critic David Drew was a friend and advocate.
He died while on holiday at Gatehouse of Fleet, Galloway, Scotland, aged 71. Recordings of A Lesson from Ecclesiastes,
Music, when soft voices die, To the Bandusian Spring and Peter and the Lame Man were issued on Argo Records in 1975.

Selected works