Desmond Shawe-Taylor (music critic)

Desmond Christopher Shawe-Taylor, (29 May 1907 – 1 November 1995), was a British writer, co-author of The Record Guide, music critic of the New Statesman, The New Yorker and The Sunday Times and a regular and long-standing contributor to The Gramophone.

Shawe-Taylor was born in Dublin, the elder of two sons of Francis Manley Shawe-Taylor (1869–1920), magistrate and high sheriff for the county of Galway, and his wife, Agnes Mary Eleanor née Ussher (1874–1939). His parents were members of the Anglo-Irish ruling classes; he was related to the playwright and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, Lady Gregory and a cousin of Sir Hugh Lane who founded Dublin's gallery of modern art. His childhood was brutally interrupted by his father's murder. He was sent to be educated in England, at Shrewsbury School and Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1930 with a first class degree in English. He then spent time in Germany and Austria before his first job, with the Royal Geographical Society in London. From 1933 he began to contribute musical, literary, and film reviews to various London journals, including the New Statesman.

During World War II Shawe-Taylor served in the Royal Artillery. After the war he returned to The New Statesman, taking on the post of music critic. In 1958 he was invited to succeed Ernest Newman as music critic of The Sunday Times. This, as The Times observed, was not an easy task. Newman, who retired just before his 90th birthday, had been the paper's music critic since 1920, and was a legendary figure. Shawe-Taylor was a success as Newman's replacement, and he remained at The Sunday Times until his own semi-retirement in 1983. His years on the paper were broken only by a season as guest critic of The New Yorker from 1973 to 1974.

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