Thomas Weelkes (1576 (?) – November 1623) was an English composer and organist. He became the organist at Winchester College in 1598 and later moved to Chichester Cathedral. His works are mostly vocal music, including madrigals, anthems, and services.

Life

There is no written record about Thomas Weelkes’s early life. David Brown, a writer who studies people’s lives, says that clues suggest Weelkes might have been the son of John Weeke, a church leader in Elsted, Sussex, and his wife, Johanne. If this was true, Weelkes could have been the boy named Thomas Weeke who was baptized in Elsted on October 25, 1576. He had at least five brothers and sisters. Brown notes that there is no stronger proof about Weelkes’s childhood or musical training. However, in the introduction to Weelkes’s book Ballets and Madrigals (1598), he wrote that he had once worked for Edward Darcy, a gentleman who served the queen.

In the introduction to his first book of madrigals (1597), Weelkes said he was very young when he wrote the music—“my yeeres yet unripened”—which Brown believes means Weelkes was born in the middle or late 1570s. By 1597, Weelkes claimed he had received kind support from George Phillpot, who lived near Winchester. By late 1598, Weelkes was hired as an organist at Winchester College, earning 13s. 4d. every three months, along with food and shelter.

Weelkes stayed at the college for three to four years. During this time, Brown says, he wrote his best madrigals. These were published in two books (1598 and 1600). Brown calls the second book, which includes music for five and six voices, “one of the most important works in the history of English madrigals.”

Between October 1601 and October 1602, Weelkes joined the choir of Chichester Cathedral as an organist and teacher of choir members. He also held a well-paid position as a lay clerk. In July 1602, he earned a degree called Bachelor of Music from New College, Oxford. On February 20, 1603, he married Elizabeth Sandham, the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Chichester. They had at least three children.

On the cover of Weelkes’s fourth and final book of madrigals, published in 1608, he called himself a “Gentleman of the Chapel Royal.” Official records from the Chapel Royal do not mention him, but a music expert named Walter S. Collins says, “It would be unlikely for someone to claim such a title unless it was true.” Brown suggests Weelkes might have held a temporary position called Gentleman Extraordinary.

While working in Chichester, some choir members were often in trouble with the authorities for bad behavior. A book called The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says Weelkes “was not the only disorderly member of the cathedral, though he would later become its most famous.” In 1609, he was accused of leaving Chichester without permission, but no reports of drinking problems appear until 1613. A writer named John Shepherd in The Musical Quarterly says it might be wise to be cautious about assuming Weelkes’s problems started before that year.

In 1616, Weelkes was reported to the bishop for being known as a common drunkard and for using bad language and swearing. The church leaders fired him for being drunk while playing the organ and for speaking badly during religious services. He was allowed to return to his job and stayed until his death, but his behavior did not improve. In 1619, he was again reported to the bishop.

Later years and death

In 1622, Elizabeth Weelkes died. At that time, she had been allowed back to work at Chichester Cathedral, but she spent a lot of time in London. She died in London in 1623 at the home of a friend and was buried on December 1, 1623, at St Bride's Fleet Street. Her will, written the day before her death at the home of her friend Henry Drinkwater in St Bride's parish, stated that her property and possessions would be divided among her three children. She also left a gift of 50 shillings to Drinkwater for his food, drink, and shelter.

Music

Weelkes is best known for his vocal music, especially his madrigals and church music. He wrote more Anglican services than any other major composer of the time, mostly for evensong. Many of his anthems are verse anthems, which would have suited the small groups of singers available at Chichester Cathedral. It has been suggested that larger-scale pieces were intended for the Chapel Royal. His coronation anthem, O Lord, grant the King a long life, was performed at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla in 2023.

Only a small amount of instrumental music was written by Weelkes, and it is rarely performed. His consort music is sombre in tone, contrasting with the often gleeful madrigals.

Weelkes's madrigals are often compared to those of John Wilbye (who the Dictionary of National Biography described as the most famous of the English madrigalists): it has been suggested that the personalities of the two men—Wilbye appears to have been a more sober character than Weelkes—are reflected in the music. Both men were interested in word painting. Weelkes' madrigals are very chromatic and use varied organic counterpoint and unconventional rhythm in their construction.

Weelkes was friendly with the madrigalist Thomas Morley, who died in 1602, when Weelkes was in his mid-twenties (Weelkes commemorated his death in a madrigal-form anthem titled A Remembrance of my Friend Thomas Morley, also known as "Death hath Deprived Me"). Some of Weelkes's madrigals were reprinted in popular collections during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but none of his verse anthems were printed until 1966, since when he has been recognised as one of the most important church composers of his time.