Thomas Morley

Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of late Renaissance music. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the English madrigal, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states that Morley was “chiefly responsible for grafting the Italian shoot on to the native stock and initiating the curiously brief but brilliant flowering of the madrigal that constitutes one of the most colourful episodes in the history of English music.” Living in London at the same time as Shakespeare, Morley was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England. He and Robert Johnson are the composers of the only surviving contemporary settings of verse by Shakespeare. Morley was active in church music as a singer, composer and organist at St Paul’s Cathedral. He was also involved in music publishing. From 1598 up to his death he held a printing patent (a type of monopoly). he studied with William Byrd, whom he named as his mentor in his 1597 publication A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke. Byrd also taught Morley’s contemporary, Peter Philips.