Obituary: Michael Short 1937 – 2023
VIV WILSON
Michael Short was a composer and musician and a lover of jazz and poetry. He was well known locally as a performer, pianist and composer.
He was born of English and Scottish parents in Bermuda in 1937 during his father’s short tour of duty with the Royal Navy. The family returned to post-war Gillingham, Kent in 1949. Having passed his eleven plus examination in Bermuda, he was accepted into Gillingham Grammar School for boys. A bright scholar with a love of maths, he graduated from Bristol University with a degree in electrical engineering, but after a year working as an engineer with a large manufacturing company in London, he gave it up to work in a music publishing house as a back-room assistant.
Eventually he found his way into a future in music, studying at Morley College and London University. In 1966 he won a Mendelssohn scholarship to study composition in Italy with Goffredo Petrassi and, returning to London, he continued his studies as a private pupil of Sir Lennox Berkeley. Later Michael taught composition at Kneller Hall (then home to the Royal Military School of Music) and also taught at the Royal Tank Regiment in Bovington, Dorset. He was the long-standing composer-in-residence at the Dolmetsch Summer School of Music. His many compositions include 18 orchestral, 5 concertos, 18 choral ,15 solo vocal, 5 for string orchestra, 12 for wind band, 13 for wind instrumental, 8 for brass and 14 for recorder.
As a well- known local pianist, Michael could regularly be found playing standards and jazz in a Hastings bar. He also loved classical music, especially Debussy, and enjoyed playing his grand piano at his home in St Leonards.
He had a great sense of humour and love of fun. He sometimes chose to perform in costume, setting humorous poems to music. One of his forays into humour was An evening of Nonsense Songs at Hastings Museum in 2010. All the music was his own and provided background to the nonsense poetry. It was recorded and sold on DVD. Another composition remembered by friends was a short opera, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, performed with a small choir in St Leonards.
It may have been while he was at Morley College that Michael became interested in the life of Gustav Holst, who had been a teacher there in 1914. His biography, Gustav Holst, The Man and His Music, published in 1992 and later updated by Michael, has been acclaimed as the most detailed account of the composer’s life and work and is recommended reading. It is still the definitive biography of Gustav Holst.
Michael and his much-loved wife Elaine often crossed the Channel to holiday in Europe. Both were very interested in French language and culture and were members of the Hastings Anglo-French group, where Michael regularly gave presentations on a variety of musical themes. On one occasion, he ‘canoed’ into the room wearing an appropriate costume to sing, in French, a tragic tale of Canadian loggers. He and Elaine loved the south coast and in recent years made beautiful homes in Hastings, then Rye, before moving to St Leonards-on-Sea, where he was delighted that with binoculars he could see the hotel where Debussy composed La Mer. Finally he moved to Lewes to be near Elaine when she moved into a nursing home.
A daughter Lydia was born to Michael and his first wife Carol. Michael’s second wife Elaine survives him, as well as Carol, Lydia and his two stepsons, Paul and Nicholas.
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