Bertram Shapleigh

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.

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]

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]