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.

Life

He was born in St. Davids in Pembrokeshire. His father was also a musician, "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 He appears to have withdrawn from the post in about 1628.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.

Works

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.

Sources

• 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