Tobias Hume (possibly 1579 – 16 April 1645) was a Scottish

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

player and

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a Conscription, conscripted or volunteer Enlisted rank, enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an Officer (armed forces), officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' deri ...

. Little is known of his life. Some have suggested that he was born in 1579 because he was admitted to the

London Charterhouse The London Charterhouse is a historic complex of buildings in Farringdon, London, dating back to the 14th century. It occupies land to the north of Charterhouse Square, and lies within the London Borough of Islington. It was originally buil ...

in 1629, a prerequisite to which was being at least 50 years old, though there is no certainty over this. He had made his living as a professional soldier, serving as an officer with the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n armies. His published music includes pieces for viols (including many solo works for the

lyra viol The lyra viol is a small bass viol, used primarily in England in the seventeenth century. Described as "the smallest of the bass viols", one should consider that the consort bass was much larger in 17th century England than most bass viols nowa ...

) and

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...

s. They were gathered in two collections, '' The First Part of Ayres'' (or ''Musicall Humors'', 1605) and ''Captain Humes Poeticall Musicke'' (1607). He was a particular champion of the viol over the then-dominant

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...

, something which caused

John Dowland John Dowland (c. 1563 – buried 20 February 1626) was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", " Come again", "Flow my tears", " I saw my Lady weepe", ...

to publish a rebuttal of Hume's ideas. Hume was also known as a prankster, as some of his somewhat unusual compositions illustrate. His most notorious piece was "An Invention for Two to Play upone one Viole", also known as Prince's Almayne. Two bows are required and the smaller of the two players is obliged to sit in the lap of the larger player. This work was notated in

tablature Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many fr ...

and is indeed technically possible to play. His instructions to "drum this with the backe of your bow" in another piece, "Harke, harke," from the ''First Part of Ayres'', constitute the earliest known use of ''

col legno In music for bowed string instrument Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite th ...

'' in Western music.Peter Walls, "Bow" II. Bowing, ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was pub ...

and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001): §2, xi. At Christmas 1629 he entered Charterhouse as a poor brother. His mind seems to have given way, for in July 1642 he published a rambling ''True Petition of Colonel Hume'' to parliament offering either to defeat the rebels in Ireland with a hundred 'instruments of war,' or, if furnished with a complete navy, to bring the king within three months twenty millions of money. He styles himself 'colonel,' but the rank was probably of his own invention, for in the entry of his death, which took place at Charterhouse on Wednesday, 16 April 1645, he is still called Captain Hume.

In popular culture

Tobias Hume is the main character of the novel ''Loot and Loyalty'' written by Jerzy Pietrkiewicz.

References

;Attribution

External links

Biography and appraisal
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hume, Tobias 1569 births 1645 deaths Scottish classical composers Renaissance composers English Baroque composers Viol players Scottish soldiers 16th-century classical composers 17th-century classical composers British male classical composers 17th-century male musicians