Ernest Shand

Ernest Shand (born Ernest William Watson; 31 January 1868 – 29 November 1924) was an English performer and composer for the classical guitar, and a music hall singer and actor. Biography Ernest William Watson was born into a musical family in Hull, Yorkshire, his mother having been a piano teacher, his father a music dealer, and his brother an actor. He began his musical education on the violin. He came to the guitar when he discovered a composition for guitar by the Spanish composer Dionisio Aguado. Viewing it as a challenge, he bought a guitar and practised until he could play it. He then became a pupil of Madame Sidney Pratten (1821–1895) who provided him with scores and became the first publisher of his compositions. These apparently impressed her so much that by 1888 she apparently had nothing more to teach him, and that his pieces were superior to hers. Before the age of 30, Shand had already written more than 150 pieces for solo guitar, a guitar concerto (the first from the British Isles) and a tutor (1896). In the United Kingdom, his playing remained unsurpassed until the emergence of Julian Bream in the late 1940s. Despite his success as a composer and performer, the guita