(fl London, 1709–35). English music publisher. He was established in London by 1709, and occasionally employed the engraver Thomas Cross. He also claimed to be a musical instrument maker, and died or retired about 1735. His son Daniel Wright had a business at different premises from 1730 to about 1735, for a while using a sign which his father had briefly used before him. He probably gave up trading about 1740, and john Johnson (ii) may have founded his business on that of the Wrights, as he issued some works from their plates. From about 1730 to 1735 the names of both Wrights appear on some imprints.
Hawkins summed up the character of the elder Wright as a man ‘who never printed anything that he did not steal’. While the Wrights were perhaps the most notorious musical pirates of their time, copying numerous publications, especially those of John Walsh, such copying was not illegal. Their publications were copied in turn. They also issued works under the same titles as those of Walsh or very similar ones, including a British Musical Miscellany, a Merry Musician and a Monthly Mask of New Songs. In 1733 the elder Wright published a set of harpsichord lessons by Maurice Greene without permission (a copy is in GB-LbL), provoking an immediate protest from the composer. Their publications included instrumental works by Handel, Vivaldi, Corelli, George Hayden, J.S. Humphries, Loeillet and Robert Valentine, as well as sheet songs, instruction books for the flute and books of dances and airs for the flute or violin including Aria di Camera: Being a Choice Collection of Scotch, Irish & Welsh Airs (c1730). A list of the elder Wright’s publications appeared in his edition of Giulio Taglietti’s Concerti e sinfonie a tre (c1734).
A music seller named Thomas Wright published sheet songs and a number of works around 1732 to 1734 in conjunction with the two Daniel Wrights, to whom no doubt he was related.
HawkinsH
W.H.G. Flood: ‘“Aria di Camera”: Oldest Printed Collection of Irish Music, 1727’, Bibliographical Society of Ireland Publications, ii/5 (1923), 97–101
W.C. Smith and C. Humphries: A Bibliography of the Musical Works published by John Walsh during the Years 1695–1720 (London, 1948, 2/1968)
C. Humphries and W.C. Smith: Music Publishing in the British Isles(London, 1954, 2/1970)
H.D. Johnstone: ‘Greene and the Lady’s Banquet: a Case of Double Piracy’, MT, cviii (1967), 36–9
D. Hunter: ‘The Publishing of Opera and Song Books in England, 1703–1726’, Notes, xlvii (1990–91), 647–85
FRANK KIDSON/WILLIAM C. SMITH/PETER WARD JONES