(b ?1665 or 1666; d London, 13 March 1736). Music seller, engraver, printer, publisher and instrument seller, probably of Irish extraction. He was established in London by about 1690. On 24 June 1692 he was appointed musical instrument-maker-in-ordinary to William III in succession to John Shaw, whose trade sign of ‘The Golden Harp and Hoboy’ he also adopted; in the same year he married Mary Allen, by whom he had 15 children, of whom only three survived infancy.
In 1695, when he began publishing, Walsh had few rivals in the trade. John Playford was dead, and his son Henry evidently lacked the initiative to maintain the family firm as a flourishing concern. Thomas Cross, while popular for his introduction of the engraved single-sheet song, was concerned more with engraving than publishing. Walsh was quick to take advantage of the situation, and engraved music appeared from his premises on a scale previously unknown in England. In addition to works by English composers he printed much popular continental music (including Corelli’s sonatas) which he often copied from Dutch editions. From about 1716, he was acquainted with Estienne Roger of Amsterdam; Walsh’s labels are found pasted over Roger’s imprint, and he occasionally used Roger’s plates, substituting his own imprint.
About 1700 (not 1710 as Hawkins maintains) Walsh replaced the use of copper plates with less costly pewter ones, and also began using punches. There was no necessary connection between these innovations but they seem to have been conceived in tandem. It is unlikely that Walsh continued to employ both metals extensively, not only because of the differences in working them and the cost advantage of pewter, but also because different inks and alteration of the rolling press were required. Pewter plates, while generally regarded as softer than copper, could produce 2000 or more impressions if handled well. As initial print runs were usually in the range of 50–200 copies, plate stamina was not a concern.
Although Walsh was criticized by Cross for the introduction of punches, he did not entirely dispense with the burin. Only a few musical signs, mainly clefs and note heads, were punched. Stems, rests, slurs and other linear markings were engraved (punches for a wider range of musical signs, letters and numbers were developed only later in the century). Indeed etching, rather than engraving alone, was his probable technique. It required less initial effort to work the plate, and the variations in depth and tone typical of art work, which could only be produced by pure engraving, were not required.
Walsh was the first music printer and publisher to adopt regularly the passe-partout technique of printing title-pages. This involved the creation of title-page plates with a blank area within which title information could be printed from a second, small plate or written in manuscript. Passe-partout title-pages are often elaborate. Walsh obtained two of his plates for these from other publishers. The royal arms title-page (seeillustration) was first used, with a different coat of arms, for Gottfried Finger’s VI Sonatas or Solo’s of 1690; the other plate, engraved by James Collins, was first used about 1690, came to Walsh in 1698 and lasted until 1769; it graced nearly 60 editions and issues.
Most of Walsh’s imprints up to 1730 also bear the name of John Hare (later John and Joseph Hare) of Cornhill (see Hare). Their shop gave Walsh a City outlet for his publications, and the Hares probably provided Walsh with the instruments he sold. In 1706 Walsh also associated himself with Peter Randall, who probably married Walsh’s sister (the william Randall (ii) who ultimately succeeded to the Walsh business was either Randall’s son or grandson). Randall entered into partnership with Walsh about October 1708, and remained with him until 1711, having given up his own shop in 1709. Randall became one of the royal musicians in 1712.
Walsh was an excellent businessman, quick to adopt new sales methods and revamp old ones, including subscription issues and free copies, and to imitate the innovations of others (the periodical music collections The Monthly Mask of Vocal Music and Harmonia anglicana were modelled on Henry Playford’s publications). By 1700 his publications covered the whole range of current secular music, including single songs, English operas, instrumental works and tutors and instruction books. Sacred songs such as collections of anthems or books of psalmody never formed as significant a part of his output. Walsh may also have been an investor in newspapers.
In the absence of adequate copyright protection for music, publishers used competitive editions (sometimes termed piracies), misleading advertisements and predatory pricing to sustain their business positions. Texts could be obtained not only from composers but also from theatre copyists, orchestral musicians, and the first editions of competitors such as John Cullen, Luke Pippard, Daniel Wright, Richard Meares, William Smith, John Cluer and Benjamin Cooke (i).
Hawkins charged Walsh with profiteering at Handel’s expense, claiming that the publication of Rinaldo (1711) earned Walsh £1500. Even though this figure was disproved in 1948, writers have continued to use it to epitomize a view of Handel as publishers’ victim. The firm eventually became Handel’s regular publisher about 1730, when john Walsh (ii) began to take over the firm.
Walsh strongly opposed the imposition of stamp duty, which was payable on single-sheet items. He was imprisoned for non-payment in 1726, being released in the following year. During the period 1724–6 Walsh tried to disguise his business activity from officials by using the ‘Musick Shops’ imprint. First levied in 1712, the duty may have led not only to the demise of music periodicals such as the Monthly Mask of Vocal Music but also to a decline in the number of single-sheet songs.
Walsh was buried in the vaults of the church of St Mary-le-Strand (he had been a churchwarden at the Savoy Chapel while the church was under construction). The Gentleman’s Magazine announced that he had left £30,000, and the London Daily Post and General Advertiser put the figure at £20,000.
AshbeeR, ii
BurneyH
HawkinsH
F. Kidson: ‘ Handel’s Publisher, John Walsh, his Successors and Contemporaries’, MQ, vi (1920), 430–50
W.C. Smith: ‘ John Walsh, Music Publisher: the First Twenty Five Years’, The Library, 5th ser., i/1 (1946), 1–5
W.C. Smith: A Bibliography of the Musical Works Published by John Walsh during the Years 1695–1720 (London, 1948, 2/1968)
W.C. Smith: ‘ John Walsh and his Successors’, The Library, 5th ser., iii/4 (1949), 291–5
W.C. Smith: ‘ New Evidence Concerning John Walsh and the Duties on Paper’, Harvard Library Bulletin, vi/2 (1952), 252–5
J. Walsh: A Catalogue of Music Published by John Walsh and his Successors (London, 1953)
C. Humphries and W.C. Smith: Music Publishing in the British Isles (London, 1954, 2/1970)
W.C. Smith: Handel: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Early Editions (London, 1960, 2/1970)
W.C. Smith and C. Humphries: A Bibliography of the Musical Works Published by the Firm of John Walsh during the Years 1721–1766 (London, 1968)
F. Hudson: ‘ The Earliest Paper made by James Whatman the Elder (1702–1759) and its Significance in Relation to G.F. Handel and John Walsh’, MR, xxxviii (1977), 15–39
D. Burrows: ‘ Walsh’s Editions of Handel’s Opera 1–5: the Texts and their Sources’, Music in Eighteenth-Century England: Essays in Memory of Charles Cudworth (Cambridge, 1983), 79–102
D. Hunter: ‘Music Copyright in Britain to 1800’, ML, lxvii (1986), 269–82
C. Hill: ‘Early Engravers of Handel’s Music’, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, xi (1987), 125–40
R. McGuinness: ‘Musical Provocation in Eighteenth-Century London: the “British Apollo”’, ML, lxviii (1987), 333–42
D. Hunter: ‘The Printing of Opera and Song Books in England, 1703–1726’, Notes, xlvi (1989), 328–51; xlvii (1991), 647–85
R.J. Rabin and S. Zohn: ‘Arne, Handel, Walsh, and Music as Intellectual Property: Two Eighteenth-Century Lawsuits’, JRMA, cxx (1995), 112–45
D. Hunter: Opera and Song Books Published in England 1703–1726: a Descriptive Bibliography (London, 1997)
D. Hunter and R.M. Mason: ‘Supporting Handel through Subscription to Publications: the Lists of Rodelinda and Faramondo Compared’, Notes, lvi (1999–2000), 27–93
D. Hunter: ‘ Handel as Victim: Composer-Publisher Relations and the Discourse of Musicology’, Encomium musicae: a Festschrift in Honor of Robert J. Snow (Stuyvesant, NY, forthcoming)
FRANK KIDSON/WILLIAM C. SMITH/PETER WARD JONES/DAVID HUNTER