Thomas Tomkins
Thomas Tomkins (
1572 –
June 9,
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, he was a skilled composer of keyboard and
consort music.
He was born in
St David's in
Pembrokeshire. His father was also a musician, a vicar choral of the
cathedral of St Davids and
organist there; his three half-brothers were musicians as well, but none attained the fame of Thomas. In
1596 he was appointed as a choral instructor at
Worcester Cathedral. Most likely he studied with
William Byrd for a time in
London, for he dedicated a madrigal to him as his teacher. While in London he probably met
Thomas Morley, for Morley included one of Tomkins' madrigals in his important collection
The Triumphs of Oriana in
1601.
He became a Gentleman Ordinary of the
Chapel Royal sometime before
1620, and became senior organist there in
1625. He appears to have withdrawn from the post in about
1628. Apparently he was still employed by Worcester Cathedral for the next two decades, but when the city was captured by parliamentary forces in
1646, during the
Civil War, he lost his job, though he was allowed to continue living near the cathedral. Music, to the victorious side, was something to be abolished in all churches (with the exception of the singing of metrical
psalms); the Worcester Cathedral organ (which Tomkins had commissioned in 1614) was destroyed and the
choir disbanded. Tomkins moved in with his son, and lived with him until his death.
Tomkins wrote
madrigals, keyboard music,
consort music,
anthems, and
liturgical music. Stylistically he was extremely conservative, even anachronistic: he seems to have completely ignored the rising
Baroque 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, or
ayre. His
polyphonic language, even in the fourth decade of the
17th century, was frankly that of the
Renaissance. Some of his madrigals are extremely expressive, with text-painting and
chromaticism worthy of Italian madrigalists such as
Marenzio or
Luzzaschi.
He was also a prolific composer of verse anthems, writing more than any other English composer of the 17th century except for
William Child. These pieces were highly regarded at the time, and are well-represented in contemporary manuscript collections. Fortunately for the survival of his music, his son Nathaniel edited most of it and published a huge collection of it (titled
Musica Deo Sacra) in
1668, after his death; much of it otherwise would have been lost during the Civil War.
* Article "Thomas Tomkins," in
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
*
The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky. New York, Schirmer Books, 1993. ISBN 002872416X
