William Barclay Squire (16 October 1855 – 13 January 1927) was a British musicologist, librarian and librettist.

Biography

William Barclay Squire was a devoted music enthusiast. He spent 35 years of his life (1885-1920) working for the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, where he took charge of the collections of the music department and added many antiquarian publications to it. He was also music critic for '' The Saturday Review'' between 1888 and 1894. Squire prepared the publishing of the ''Catalogue of Printed Music before 1801'' (edited in 1912) and negotiated the deposit of the Royal Music Collection, for which he prepared the catalogue. He contributed numerous articles to the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911, to the

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

and to the Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Occasionally, Squire acted as a librettist. His main work was the

libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...

for ''The Veiled Prophet'', a Romantic Opera in 3 acts composed by

Charles Villiers Stanford Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic music, Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was ed ...

, adapted from the homonymous ballad in Thomas Moore's oriental romance ''

Lalla Rookh ''Lalla Rookh'' is an Oriental romance by Irish poet Thomas Moore, published in 1817. The title is taken from the name of the heroine of the frame tale, the (fictional) daughter of the 17th-century Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The work consis ...

'', published 1890.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Squire, William Barclay 1885 births 1927 deaths English opera librettists Contributors to the Encyclopædia Britannica English male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights Contributors to the Dictionary of National Biography 20th-century English male writers 20th-century British musicologists Music librarians 19th-century musicologists

Biography

See also

References

Further reading

External links