John Sheppard

about

John Sheppard (c. 1512 or 1515 – December 1558) was an English singer and composer. Biography In 1554 he supplicated, apparently unsuccessfully, for the degree of Doctor of Music at Oxford University, stating that he had studied music for 24 years and had ‘composed many songs’. If his study period began in 1530 it is probable that he was born early in the second decade of the sixteenth century. At Michaelmas 1543 he was appointed informator choristarum at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he remained until 1548. By 1552 he was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, a post which he may have acquired directly after his departure from Magdalen. Research by David Chadd has revealed that his will was made on 1 December 1558 and that he was buried in 21 December, though he was awarded liveries for the funeral of Queen Mary on 13 December and even for the coronation of Elizabeth I on 15 January 1559, evidently in ignorance of his death. Sources Sheppard was one of the finest English church composers of the Tudor era, his achievements matched in his generation only by Thomas Tallis. The two most extensive sources of his music are the so-called Gyffard partbooks (GB-Lbm 17802-5), a set of four manuscript part-books probably copied during the 1570s for Dr Roger Gyffard (research by David Mateer) and GB-Och 979-83, five surviving part-books from a set of six copied after 1575 by the Windsor singingman John Baldwin. Much of the Gyffard music may have been composed during Sheppard’s Oxford year

top songs

albums

John Sheppard: Missa Cantate

▥

John Sheppard: Media Vita

John Sheppard: Media Vita in Morte Sumus

Naked Byrd

▥

Music for Compline: Tallis, Byrd, Sheppard

▥

A New Heaven : 1000 Years of Sacred Choral Music

▥

Renaissance - Music for Inner Peace

▥

Lux

▥

Sheppard: English & Latin Church Music

▥

Tudor Anthems and Motets

▥

Ceremony and Devotion - Music for the Tudors

▥

From Tallis To Byrd

similar artists