John Wall Callcott was an eminent English music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Callcott was born in Kensington

Kensington

Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. He was a pupil of Haydn, and is celebrated mainly for his glee

Glee (music)

A glee is an English type of part song spanning the late baroque, classical and early romantic periods. It is usually scored for at least three voices, and generally intended to be sung unaccompanied. Glees often consist of a number of short, musically contrasted movements and their texts can be...

 compositions and "catches

Catch (music)

In music, a catch or trick canon is a type of round - a musical composition in which two or more voices repeatedly sing the same melody or sometimes slightly different melodies, beginning at different times. In a catch, the lines of lyrics interact so that a word or phrase is produced that does...

". In the best known of his catches he ridiculed Sir John Hawkins

John Hawkins (author)

Sir John Hawkins was an English author and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson and Horace Walpole. He was part of Johnson's various clubs but later left The Literary Club after a disagreement with some of Johnson's other friends. His friendship with Johnson continued and he was made one of the executors...

' History of Music. Although ill-health prevented Callcott from completing his Musical Dictionary, His Musical Grammar(1806) remained in use throughout the 19th Century.

His glees number at least 100, of which 8 won prizes. Callcott set lyrics by leading poets of his day, including Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.-Early life and education:...

, Sir Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

, Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.-Childhood:...

, Robert Southey

Robert Southey

Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843...

 and Ossian

Ossian

Ossian is the narrator and supposed author of a cycle of poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the Scots Gaelic. He is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, anglicised to Finn McCool, a character from Irish mythology...

. They include (selective list):

• O snatch me swift for 5 voices SATBarB
• It was a friar of orders grey for 3 voices SSB
• In the lonely vale of streams for 4 voices SATB
• Ella for 4 voices SATB
• Cara, vale! for 4 voices SSTB
• Father of Heroes (1792) for 5 voices ATTBB
• The Erl-King - a setting of Goethe's Erlkönig translated into English by Matthew Lewis, author of the Gothic novel, The Monk
  The Monk
  The Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796. It was written before the author turned 20, in the space of 10 weeks.-Characters:...
  
  ,
• the original setting (as a three part glee) of Drink to me only with thine eyes
  Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes
  "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes" is a popular English song, set to the lyrics of Ben Jonson's 1616 poem "Song. To Celia." John Addington Symonds demonstrated in The Academy 16 that almost every line has its counterpart in the Epistles of Philostratus, notably Epistle xxx...
  
  

A number of his glees specify two Soprano or Treble (boy soprano) voices, the second of which has a range appropriate to a female mezzo-soprano or contralto (but would have been thought too high for a counter-tenor of this period).

Callcott also composed solo songs and religious music including psalms

Psalms

The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...

 and sacred canons

Canon law

Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...

.

Callcott's daughter Elizabeth married William Horsley

William Horsley

William Horsley was an English musician.In 1790 he became the pupil of Theodore Smith, an indifferent musician of the time, who, however, taught him sufficiently well to obtain the position of organist at Ely Chapel, Holborn, in 1794...

 who, in 1824, published A collection of Glees Canons and Catches, an edition of his father-in-law's works together with a Memoir of Dr Callcott. His brother, Augustus Wall Callcott

Augustus Wall Callcott

Sir Augustus Wall Callcott was an English landscape painter-Life and work:Callcott was born in Kensington gravel pits, London. His first study was music and he sang for several years in the choir of Westminster Abbey...

, was a noted landscape painter.

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