Pavan No.1 (Tomkins)
Movements
Notes
In 1628 Tomkins was named “Composer of the King’s Music in ordinary” at an annual salary of £40, succeeding Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger who died in March that year. But this prestigious post, the highest honour available to an English musician, was quickly revoked on the grounds that it had been promised to Ferrabosco’s son. Charles I was executed in 1649, and a few days later Tomkins, always a royalist, composed his superb Sad Pavan: for these distracted times.
He was a prolific composer of both full and verse anthems, writing more than almost any other English composer of the 17th century and several of his works for the church were contemporaneously copied for use elsewhere. The survival of his music was ensured by the posthumous publication, overseen by his son Nathaniel.
