Ernest Shand

Biography

Born as Ernest William Watson in Hull, Yorkshire, Shand was born into a musical family, his mother having been a piano teacher, his father a music dealer, and his brother an actor. He began his musical education on the violin. He came to the guitar when he discovered a composition for guitar by the Spanish composer Dionysio Aguado. Viewing it as a challenge, he bought a guitar and practised until he could play it. He then became a pupil of Madame Sidney Pratten (1821–1895) who provided him with scores and became the first publisher of his compositions. These apparently impressed her so much that by 1888 she apparently had nothing more to teach him, and that his pieces were superior to hers. Before the age of 30, Shand had already written more than 150 pieces for solo guitar, a guitar concerto (the first from the British Isles) and a tutor (1896). In the United Kingdom, his playing remained unsurpassed until the emergence of Julian Bream in the late 1940s.

Despite his success as a composer and performer, the guitar was a relatively small niche in England. Shand made his living mainly from acting in music halls, and only late in life was persuaded by his wife and friends to take up the guitar professionally. Even then he had to return to acting after he had lost money in a studio and advertising business. As an actor, he travelled as far as Australia, where he also gave guitar recitals. Shand moved to London in 1896, where he was elected to the Senate of the London Guild of Violinists and gave a well-received series of performances at the Royal College of Music. During one of his tours, he was apparently attacked by an aggrieved Russian and sustained severe injuries that affected him for the rest of his life.

Shand published his last music around 1910, after which he moved to Mosley, Birmingham. At the outbreak of World War I, he entertained British troops on the guitar. He died in Birmingham.

Music

As a composer, Shand was able to sustain the growth of the classical guitar against the popularity of large orchestras by writing music that brought guitar composition to a more modern approach. Shand produced a wide range of music including salon pieces, dances, variations, fantasias, songs, chamber music, piano pieces, transcriptions and pedagogical works. "All of these compositions are filled with unbridled individualism; lyrical pieces that are peppered with the suggestion of song." (Ophee, 1999)

Selected compositions

Guitar solo

Chamber music

Songs

Tutor

Other

Modern editions

Recordings