Barnard, John

Extract

(b 1591; flc1641). English music editor and composer. He may well have been the John Barnard who was a lay clerk at Canterbury Cathedral between 1618 and 1622, and whose age at the time of his marriage in 1619 was given as ‘about 28’. Barnard, who was a minor canon of St Paul's Cathedral, London, in the early 17th century, was the compiler of The First Book of Selected Church Musick (London, 1641/R). This anthology of church music by 19 leading composers of the late 16th and early 17th centuries was the only printed collection of English liturgical music to appear between Day's Certaine notes (London, 1565) and the Civil War. It comprised ten partbooks – Medius, Primus and Secundus Contratenor, Tenor and Bassus, for each side of the choir, Decani and Cantoris. Only 38 partbooks are now extant, of which 33 are imperfect. No printed organbook exists, and it seems most unlikely that one was ever published, though it may be that the ‘Batten’ Organbook would have served as a source for one. A much larger collection of English liturgical music which Barnard assembled in manuscript between about ...