Life

He was natural around St Davids in Pembrokeshire. His father was too the musician, "vicar choral" of the cathedral of St Davids and organist there; his three half-half brother were musicians too, however none attained a fame of Thomas. Within 1596 he was appointed as a choral instructor at Worcester Cathedral. Virtually all probably he exposed sustaining William Byrd for a period around London, for he dedicated a madrigal to him when his teacher. When within London he probably met Thomas Morley, for Morley included one of Tomkins' madrigals within his significant collection A Triumphs of Oriana inside 1601.

He became the Gentleman Ordinary of the Chapel Royal sometime before 1620, and became senior organist there around 1625. He appears to keep close at hand withdrawn from either a post inside astir 1628. Apparently he was however listed by Worcester Cathedral for a next ii decades, however after the city was captured by parliamentary forces around 1646, during a Civil War, he lost his job, though he was allowed to prove my point dwelling touching a cathedral. Music, to a victorious side, was something to exist as abolished altogether churches (by using the exception of the singing of metric psalms); a Worcester Cathedral organ (which Tomkins experienced licenced around 1614) was destroyed & the choir disbanded. Tomkins moved around by having his boy, & swallow him until his demise.

Works

Tomkins wrote madrigals, keyboard music, consort music, anthems, and liturgical music. Stylistically he was highly conservative, potentially anachronic: he seems to keep around entirely ignored a rising Baroque practice around him, using its Italian-inspired idioms, & he besides avoided writing within virtually all of a popular forms of the period, like the lute song, or ayre. His polyphonic language, even in the 4th decade of the 17th century, was frankly that of the Renaissance. A bit of of his madrigals come highly expressive, by using text-painting & chromaticism worthy of Italian madrigalists such as Marenzio or Luzzaschi.

He was as well the prolific composer of verse anthems, writing to a higher degree any more English composer of the 17th century except for William Child. These pieces were extremely regarded at a instance, & come easily-represented within contemporary manuscript collections. Luckily for the survival of his music, his boy Nathaniel edited virtually all of it & published the immense collection of it (titled Musica Deo Sacra) around 1668, after his demise; lot of it otherwise would stand been misused in a period of the Civil War.

Sources

Article "Thomas Tomkins," in The Future Grove Lexicon of Music & Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. Twenty vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742 ''A Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'', Eighth ed. Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky. Just released York, Schirmer Books, 1993. ISBN 002872416X

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