Thomas Tomkins (1572 – 9 June 1656) was a Welsh-born composer of the late
Tudor and early
Stuart period. In addition to being one of the prominent members of the
English Madrigal School
The English Madrigal School was the brief but intense flowering of the musical madrigal (music), madrigal in England, mostly from 1588 to 1627, along with the composers who produced them. The English madrigals were a cappella, predominantly light i ...
, he was a skilled composer of keyboard and
consort __NOTOC__
Consort may refer to:
Music
* "The Consort" (Rufus Wainwright song), from the 2000 album ''Poses''
* Consort of instruments, term for instrumental ensembles
* Consort song (musical), a characteristic English song form, late 16th–earl ...
music, and the last member of the English
virginalist
The virginals (or virginal) is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family. It was popular in Europe during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.
Description
A virginal is a smaller and simpler rectangular or polygonal form of ...
school.
Life
Tomkins was born in
St David's
St Davids or St David's ( cy, Tyddewi, , "David's house”) is a city and a community (named St Davids and the Cathedral Close) with a cathedral in Pembrokeshire, Wales, lying on the River Alun. It is the resting place of Saint David, Wa ...
in
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...
in 1572. His father, also Thomas, who had moved there in 1565 from the family home of
Lostwithiel
Lostwithiel (; kw, Lostwydhyel) is a civil parish and small town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom at the head of the estuary of the River Fowey. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,739, increasing to 2,899 at the 2011 c ...
in Cornwall, was a
vicar choral
A lay clerk, also known as a lay vicar, song man or a vicar choral, is a professional adult singer in an Anglican cathedral and often Roman Catholic Cathedrals in the UK, or (occasionally) collegiate choir in Britain and Ireland. The vicars chora ...
of
St David's Cathedral
St Davids Cathedral ( cy, Eglwys Gadeiriol Tyddewi) is situated in St DavidsBritain's smallest city in the county of Pembrokeshire, near the most westerly point of Wales.
Early history
The monastic community was founded by Saint David, Abbot ...
and organist there. Three of Thomas junior's half-brothers,
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
, Giles and Robert, also became eminent musicians, but none quite attained the fame of Thomas. By 1594, but possibly as early as 1586, Thomas and his family had moved to
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
, where his father was employed as a minor canon at the
cathedral
A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...
. Thomas almost certainly studied under
William Byrd
William Byrd (; 4 July 1623) was an English composer of late Renaissance music. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native England and those on the continent. He ...
for a time, for one of his songs bears the inscription: ''To my ancient, and much reverenced Master, William Byrd'', and it may have been at this period of his career, since Byrd leased property at Longney, near Gloucester. Although documentary proof is lacking, it is also possible that Byrd was instrumental in finding young Thomas a place as chorister in the
Chapel Royal
The Chapel Royal is an establishment in the Royal Household serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the British Royal Family. Historically it was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also applie ...
. In any case, all former Chapel Royal choristers were required to be found a place at university, and in 1607 Tomkins was admitted to the degree of B.Mus. as a member of
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...
.
![Worcester cathedral](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Worcester_Cathedral.jpg)
But already in 1596 he had been appointed Organist at
Worcester Cathedral
Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, in Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified ...
. The next year he married Alice Patrick, a widow nine years his senior, whose husband Nathaniel, who died in 1595, had been Tomkins' predecessor at Worcester. Thomas's only son, Nathaniel, was born in Worcester in 1599, where he was to spend the rest of his life and become a respected musician.
Tomkins was acquainted with
Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of the Renaissance. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the Englis ...
, also a pupil of Byrd's, for his signed copy of Morley's publication ''Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke'' (1597) has been preserved, together with Tomkins' many annotations; and in 1601 Morley included one of Tomkins' madrigals in his important collection ''
The Triumphs of Oriana
''The Triumphs of Oriana'' is a book of English madrigals, compiled and published in 1601 by Thomas Morley, which first edition has 25 pieces by 23 composers (Thomas Morley and Ellis Gibbons have two madrigals). It was said to have been made to ...
''.
In 1612 Tomkins oversaw the construction in Worcester cathedral of a magnificent new organ by
Thomas Dallam
Thomas Dallam (1575 - after 1620) was an English organ-builder.
Dallam served an apprenticeship and became a member of London's Blacksmiths' Company. He travelled frequently to build organs on site, going as far as Turkey.
Family
Dallam was ...
, the foremost organ-builder of the day. He continued writing verse anthems, and his collection of 28 madrigals, the ''Songs of 3, 4, 5 and 6 parts'' was finally published in 1622 with a dedicatory poem by his half-brother John Tomkins (circa 1587–1638), now organist of
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...
(later of
St Paul's and of the Chapel Royal), with whom Thomas maintained an intimate and loving relationship.
Probably by about 1603 Thomas was appointed a Gentleman Extraordinary of the Chapel Royal. This was an honorary post, but in 1621 he became a Gentleman Ordinary and organist under his friend and senior organist,
Orlando Gibbons
Orlando Gibbons ( bapt. 25 December 1583 – 5 June 1625) was an English composer and keyboard player who was one of the last masters of the English Virginalist School and English Madrigal School. The best known member of a musical famil ...
. The duties connected with this post included regular journeys between Worcester and London, which Tomkins performed until about 163
On
James I of England, James I's death in March 1625 Tomkins, with other Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, was required to attend to both the music for James's funeral and that for the
coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...
of
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
. These monumental tasks proved too much for Gibbons, who died of a stroke in
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour.
...
, where Charles was supposed to meet his future bride,
Henrietta Maria of France
Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She wa ...
, placing an even greater strain on Tomkins. Because of
plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pes ...
, the coronation was luckily postponed until February 1626, giving Tomkins time to compose most of the eight anthems sung at the ceremony.
[Boden 2005, p. 127]
In 1628 Tomkins was named "Composer of
he King'sMusic in ordinary" at an annual salary of £40, succeeding
Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger
Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger (c. 1575 – March 1628) was an English composer and viol player of Italian descent. He straddles the line between the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
Biography
Ferrabosco was born at Greenwich, the illeg ...
who died in March that year. But this prestigious post, the highest honour available to an English musician, was quickly revoked on the grounds that it had been promised to Ferrabosco's son. This shabby treatment was to be only the first of a series of adversities that overtook the composer for the last fourteen years of his life. He continued, however, to perform his dual duties at Worcester and London until 1639.
Tomkins' devoted wife Alice died in 1642, the year
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
broke out. Worcester was one of the first casualties: the cathedral was desecrated, and Tomkins' organ badly damaged by the
Parliamentarians. The following year Tomkins' house near the cathedral suffered a direct hit by
cannon
A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
shot, making it uninhabitable for a long period, and destroying most of his household goods and probably a number of his musical
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...
s. About this time Tomkins married his second wife Martha Browne, widow of a Worcester Cathedral
lay clerk
A lay clerk, also known as a lay vicar, song man or a vicar choral, is a professional adult singer in an Anglican cathedral and often Roman Catholic Cathedrals in the UK, or (occasionally) collegiate choir in Britain and Ireland. The vicars chora ...
.
Further conflict and a siege in 1646 caused untold damage to the city. With the choir disbanded and the cathedral closed, Tomkins turned his genius to the composition of some of his finest keyboard and consort music; in 1647, he wrote a belated ''tombeau'' or tribute to
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, (13 April 1593 ( N.S.)12 May 1641), was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1 ...
, and a further one to the memory of
William Laud
William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 ...
, Archbishop of Canterbury, both of them beheaded in the 1640s, and both admired by Tomkins. Charles I was executed in 1649, and a few days later Tomkins, always a royalist, composed his superb ''Sad Pavan: for these distracted times''. His second wife Martha died around 1653, and deprived of his living, Tomkins, now 81, was in serious financial difficulties. In 1654 his son Nathaniel married Isabella Folliott, a wealthy widow, and Thomas went to live with them in
Martin Hussingtree
Martin Hussingtree is a small village situated between Droitwich Spa and Worcester in the county of Worcestershire, England. It is north of another village called Fernhill Heath. It is situated on a junction of the A38 and A4538. A public house ...
, some four miles from Worcester. He expressed his gratitude by composing his ''Galliard, The Lady Folliot's'' in her honour. Two years later he died and was buried in the churchyard of the
Church of St Michael and All Angels in Martin Hussingtree on 9 June 1656.
Works
Tomkins wrote and published
madrigal
A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number o ...
s—amongst which ''The Fauns and Satyrs Tripping'', included in Morley's ''The Triumphs of Oriana'' (1601); ''Songs of 3,4,5 and 6 parts'' (1622); 76 pieces of keyboard (organ, virginal, harpsichord) music,
consort __NOTOC__
Consort may refer to:
Music
* "The Consort" (Rufus Wainwright song), from the 2000 album ''Poses''
* Consort of instruments, term for instrumental ensembles
* Consort song (musical), a characteristic English song form, late 16th–earl ...
music,
anthem
An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to short ...
s, and
liturgical music
Liturgical music originated as a part of religious ceremony, and includes a number of traditions, both ancient and modern. Liturgical music is well known as a part of Catholic Mass, the Anglican Holy Communion service (or Eucharist) and Evensong ...
. Stylistically he was extremely conservative, even anachronistic: he seems to have completely ignored the rising
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
practice around him, with its Italian-inspired idioms, and he also avoided writing in most of the popular forms of the time, such as the
lute song
The term lute song is given to a music style from the late 16th century to early 17th century, late Renaissance to early Baroque, that was predominantly in England and France. Lute songs were generally in strophic form or verse repeating with a h ...
, or
ayre
Ayre ( ; gv, Inver Ayre) is one of the six sheadings of the Isle of Man.
It is located in the north of the island (part of the traditional ''North Side'' division) and consists of the three historic parishes of Andreas, Bride and (Kirk Christ ...
. His
polyphonic
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...
language, even in the fourth decade of the 17th century, was frankly that of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
. Some of his madrigals are extremely expressive, with text-painting and
chromaticism
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic scale, diatonic pitch (music), pitches and chord (music), chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses o ...
worthy of Italian madrigalists such as
Marenzio
Luca Marenzio (also Marentio; October 18, 1553 or 1554 – August 22, 1599) was an Italian composer and singer of the late Renaissance.
He was one of the most renowned composers of madrigals, and wrote some of the most famous examples of the fo ...
or
Luzzaschi.
He was also a prolific composer of both full and verse anthems, writing more than almost any other English composer of the 17th century—surpassed (putatively) only by
William Child
William Child (160623 March 1697) was an English composer and organist.
Early life
Born in Bristol, Child was a chorister in the cathedral under the direction of Elway Bevin. In 1630 he began his lifetime association with St. George's Chape ...
—and several of his works for the church were contemporaneously copied for use elsewhere. The survival of his music was ensured by the posthumous publication, overseen by his son Nathaniel, of ''Musica Deo Sacra et Ecclesiae Anglicanae; or Music dedicated to the Honor and Service of God, and to the Use of Cathedral and other Churches of England'' (William Godbid, London: 1668); ''Musica Deo Sacra'' contains five services, five psalm tunes, the Preces and two proper psalms, and ninety-four anthems, and was published as a five-volume set—one volume each for Medius; Contratenor; Tenor; Bassus, and the Pars Organica.
References
Sources
* Stephen D. Tuttle: ''Thomas Tomkins: Keyboard Music''. Stainer & Bell, London 1973.
* Anthony Boden: ''Thomas Tomkins: The Last Elizabethan''. Ashgate Publishing 2005.
* John Irving: ''The Instrumental Music of Thomas Tomkins, 1572–1656''. Garland Publishing, New York 1989.
* ''Thomas Tomkins – Pièces pour Virginal, 1646–1654. Introduction de
François Lesure
François Lesure (23 May 1923 in Paris – 21 June 2001) was a French librarian and musicologist.
Biography
François Lesure studied at the Sorbonne, the École nationale des chartes (graduated in 1950), the École pratique des hautes études ...
''. Fac-similé du ms. autographe de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Rés. 1122. Minkoff, Geneva 1982.
*Article "Thomas Tomkins," in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.
*''The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'', 8th ed. Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky. New York, Schirmer Books, 1993.
External links
*
The Thomas Tomkins Society*
*
fro
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tomkins, Thomas
Classical composers of church music
English classical composers
English madrigal composers
Renaissance composers
English Baroque composers
Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal
16th-century English composers
17th-century English composers
1572 births
1656 deaths
People from St Davids
17th-century classical composers
English male classical composers
Children of the Chapel Royal
Welsh composers
Welsh male composers
Welsh classical composers
Welsh male classical composers
17th-century male musicians