John Ward, ‘to satisfie both quickness of heart and hand’

Abstract

Despite the fact that Thomas Mace, writing in 1676, rated ‘Mr John Ward’ (c.1589–1638) as one of the ‘divers Famous English Men … [of] very Great Eminency, and Worth’ in the writing of fancies ‘as fit Monuments, and Patterns for Sober, and Wise Posterity, worthy to be Imitated and Practiced’, it has taken until now for a modern edition of his consort music of four parts to appear. This volume—which also includes the six Ayres ‘for 2 Basse violls’—concludes Musica Britannica's complete consort music of John Ward, complementing Ian Payne's earlier volume of fantasias and In Nomines of five and six parts, MB lxvii. Notwithstanding the evident popularity of Ward's consort music in the 17th century, he remains a shadowy figure; indeed, there has been speculation, now discounted, that Ward of the consort music and Ward the madrigal composer were two separate musicians. He was probably the son of a minor canon at Canterbury Cathedral, and it was at Canterbury that Ward was a chorister between 1597 and 1604—one can speculate that he would have honed his skills as a violist during this time. At some point between 1607 and 1613 he became a member of the flourishing musical household of Sir Henry Fanshawe, who had properties in both Hertfordshire and London, and whom Ward described as his ‘very good Maister’. On the death of Sir Henry in 1616 Ward's fortunes changed: Fanshawe's son, Sir Thomas, largely disbanded his father's domestic music and for the rest of his life Ward took clerical employment behind a desk in London as an ‘attorney’ to the Remembrancer of the Exchequer, substituting for Sir Thomas. In the 17th century, just as today, musicians followed a portfolio career.