Shawe-Taylor, Desmond

Desmond Christopher Shawe-Taylor, 1907-1995, English music critic, was born in Dublin, Ireland and educated at Oxford. Upon graduation he was employed by The Royal Geographical Society as assistant editor of "Geographical Journal." After a short stint there he began writing mostly literary criticism and occasional music-related articles for The Times, The Spectator and other periodicals. In 1939 he joined the Royal Artillery of the British Territorial Army and served his final two years, 1944-1945, as Captain in GIII Intelligence. He resumed his writing career after the war, this time with an emphasis on music. In 1945 he was retained as the music critic for the New Statesman and Nation, and then gramophone critic for The Observer, as well as writing occasional articles for other journals. From 1958 until his retirement in 1983 he was chief music critic of the Sunday Times. In addition, he made frequent broadcasts on BBC Home Service and Third Programmes about music, particularly opera, singing and gramophone records. Shawe-Taylor also has several books to his credit. He wrote Covent Garden (London: Max Parrish, 1948) and collaborated on The Record Guide (London: Collins, 1951) and The Record Year (London: Collins, [1953]) with Edward Sackville-West.

From the guide to the Shawe-Taylor mss., 1929-1995, (Lilly Library (Indiana University, Bloomington) http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly)