Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Busby, Thomas (1754-1838), composer and music critic
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Description area
Dates of existence
1754 - 1838
History
Composer and music critic. Pupil of Battishill. Organist of St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard St, 1798.
Entered Magdalene as a sizar in 1800. MusD, 1801, for a thanksgiving ode on British naval victories.
Composer of various stage-works and oratorios, beginning with The Prophecy (after A. Pope, The Messiah), first performed in 1799. Author of A Complete and Comprehensive Dictionary of Music (1805) and A General History of Music, from the earliest times to the present (1819).
He would appear to have been more successful in writing about music than composing it. Was said to have had ‘loose notions on religious subjects’.