Martin Edward Fallas Shaw

Martin Edward Fallas Shaw was an English composer, conductor, organist, arranger, editor, and advocate for the revival of English musical traditions. Born in Kennington, London, on March 9, 1875, he was the eldest of nine children in a musical family: his father, James Shaw, was a church organist, and his mother, Charlotte Elizabeth Shaw, was a trained pianist. He studied at the Royal College of Music under Charles Villiers Stanford and there formed friendships with musicians including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, and John Ireland.

Shaw's early professional life ranged beyond church music. He worked with Edward Gordon Craig's theatrical enterprises and served as musical director for tours connected with Isadora Duncan. After returning to London, he became music director at St Mary's, Primrose Hill, in 1908, where his collaboration with the priest and liturgist Percy Dearmer helped shape his later work in congregational song.

With Dearmer and Vaughan Williams, Shaw became deeply involved in hymn and carol editing. His scholarship and arrangements contributed to Songs of Praise and The Oxford Book of Carols, and he helped transmit traditional English, Celtic, and continental melodies into twentieth-century worship. His own catalog included songs, anthems, cantatas, stage works, hymn tunes, and the oratorio The Redeemer. Representative compositions include With a Voice of Singing and hymn tunes such as LITTLE CORNARD and MARCHING.

Shaw was appointed OBE in 1955 and died in 1958. His enduring significance lies both in original composition and in editorial and arranging work that connected folk-song revival, Anglican church music, education, and congregational worship. In the Advent carol tradition, his contribution to BESANÇON was a harmonization or arrangement of an older French melody, not authorship of the underlying tune.