John Farmer (composer)

For other people with the same name, see John Farmer (disambiguation).

John Farmer (c. 1570 – c. 1601) was an important composer of the English Madrigal School.^[1] He was born in England during the Elizabethan period, and was also known by his skillful settings for four voices of the old church psalm tunes.^[2] His exact date of birth is not known – a 1926 article by Grattan Flood posits a date around 1564 to 1565 based on matriculation records.^[3] Farmer was under the patronage of the Earl of Oxford and dedicated his collection of canons and his late madrigal volume to his patron.^[4]

In 1595, Farmer was appointed organist and master of children at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and also, at the same time, organist of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.^[5][6] In 1599, he moved to London and published his only collection of four-part madrigals, which he dedicated to Edward de Vere.

His Lord's Prayer is performed widely throughout many churches and cathedrals, mostly in Britain.^[7] It is included in Volume 2 of Oxford Choral Classics, published by Oxford University Press.^[8]

Giles Farnaby dedicated a pavan to him,^{[citation needed]} included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book as Farmer's Paven (no. CCLXXXVII).

Farmer's Divers & Sundry Waies was the source of the fugues in Michael Maier's book, Atalanta Fugiens.^[9] Of the 50 three-part fugues in Atalanta Fugiens, 40 have been shown by Ludwig to be based on Farmer's compositions in Divers & Sundry Waies.

Title page of Farmer's 1591 Divers & Sundry Waies

Selected works

• Fair Phyllis I Saw Sitting All Alone
• Fair Nymphs, I Heard One Telling
• A Little Pretty Bonny Lass
• Take Time While Time Doth Last

References

1. Unger, Melvin P. (2010). Historical Dictionary of Choral Music. Scarecrow Press. p. 295. ISBN 9780810873926.
2. Grove, Sir George (1908). Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 2. New York: McMillan. p. 11.
3. Flood, W. H. Grattan (1926). "New Light on Late Tudor Composers: XV. John Farmer". The Musical Times. 67 (997): 219–220. doi:10.2307/912508. JSTOR 912508.
4. Hutton, William Holden (1889). "Farmer, John" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 18. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
5. Boydell, Bara (2004). A History of Music at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1843830443.
6. "Framer, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9168. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
7. Byram-Wigfield, Ben (2021). "Tudor Settings of the Lord's Prayer". www.ancientgroove.co.uk. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
8. "English Church Music, Volume 2: Canticles and Responses". group.oup.com. Oxford University Press. 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
9. Ludwig, Loren. "John Farmer's Sundry Waies: The English Origin of Michael Maier's 'Alchemical Fugues'". Furnace and Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier's "Atalanta fugiens" (1618) with Scholarly Commentary. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2020. doi:10.26300/bdp.ff.ludwig

External links

• Free scores by John Farmer in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by John Farmer at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• A free recording of a song from Umeå Akademiska Kör
• Divers & sundry waies of two parts in one, to the number of fortie, uppon one playnsong at the New York Public Library