1. On Thomas Tomkins, a Survivor in difficult times.

Dearly Beloved

The two things I have missed most since the start of the Covid 19 lock down are not being able to sing at the Mass at St Clement's Church and the regular evensong at St John's College's chapel just across the road from St Clement's.

I had heard a lot of good notes until lock down was imposed in March 2020. It is strange to hear music composed for evensongs four hundred and fifty years ago still being sung in the liturgical context for which they were written and I have taken to looking up the histories of some of these ancient composers after hearing their music.

During the difficult time surrounding Brexit (my wife's family comes from France) and Covid-19, I was especially comforted by the music and history of Thomas Tomkins(1572 to 1656). As with so many church musicians he was to the manor born: his father a Vicar Choral or Song Man at St David's Cathedral. Tomkins appears to have been a pupil of William Byrd, and obtained a place as a Chorister in the Chapel Royal; and he seems to have combined that with being the organist at Worcester Cathedral where he oversaw the construction of a new organ by the acclaimed Thomas Dallam.

In 1625, due to the incapacity of Orlando Gibbons following a stroke, Tomkins took over the composition of music for the coronation of Charles I; and he was fortunate that an outbreak of plague caused a delay in the ceremony, which allowed completion of the music.

Things started to go wrong in 1642, the year when his first wife died and the Civil War broke out. Worcester was a major stronghold for the Royalists. But the Roundheads, who disapproved of music, ransacked its Cathedral, destroying the new organ. The following year a canon ball hit Tomkins house, adjacent to the Cathedral, rendering it uninhabitable. In 1646 the city was under siege, and much damage was done. Shortly afterwards the cathedral was closed and the choir disbanded, so that Tomkins was deprived of his living. On the execution of Charles I in 1649 he wrote his famous Sad Pavan: for these distracted times. He also wrote tombeaux for some of those executed during the Civil War, notably Archbishop William Laud and Thomas Wentworth 1st Earl of Strafford.

His second wife had died in 1653, and now in his early eighties Tomkins was destitute. He at last had some good fortune when his only son Nathaniel married ‘a rich widow’,Isabella Folliot, and he spent his last years living with them in relative comfort. In a gesture typical of this generous and resourceful man he wrote Galliard in her honour -- The Lady Folliot's.

We are fortunate that much of his church music was published posthumously,organised by his son, and entitled: Music dedicated to the Honor and Service of God, and to the Use of Cathedral and other Churches of England (William Godbid, London:1668)

I hope that soon it will be possible once again to sing in the Mass at St Clement's and also to listen to Tomkins' 5th or his 6th Service sung at evensong by the Choir of St John's College Chapel so I can be reminded of the way in which, following Tomkin's' example, difficult times can be survived by loyalty, generosity and plain hard work.

Dated: 20 July 2020


 Donated to Wikipedia Commons by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
St Cecilia, Patron Saint of Music. Orazio Gentileschi and Giovanni Lanfranco, Saint Cecilia and an Angel, c. 1617–1618 and c. 1621–1627,





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