"John Callcott" redirects here. For the English artist (1817–1903), see John Callcott Horsley.
John Wall Callcott. Portrait by Burnet Reading (1815).
John Wall Callcott (20 November 1766 – 15 May 1821) was an English composer.
Callcott was born in Kensington, London. He was a pupil of Haydn, and is celebrated mainly for his glee compositions and catches. In the best known of his catches[clarification needed] he ridiculed Sir John Hawkins' History of Music. Although ill-health prevented Callcott from completing his Musical Dictionary, His Musical Grammar (1806) remained in use throughout the 19th century.
A number of his glees specify two soprano or treble (boy soprano) voices, the second of which has a range appropriate to a female mezzo-soprano or contralto (but would have been thought too high for a counter-tenor of this period).
Callcott also composed solo songs and religious music including psalms and sacred canons.
Callcott's daughter Elizabeth married William Horsley who, in 1824, published A collection of Glees Canons and Catches, an edition of his father-in-law's works together with a Memoir of Dr Callcott. His son William Hutchins Callcott became a composer and arranger.