DISSERTATION ABSTRACT

Michael A. Rintamaa
The English Church Music of Edmund Hooper (c.1553-1621)

This study will present the life and works of Edmund Hooper (c. 1553-1621). Hooper was an important composer, organist, and choirmaster of the early 1600' s, though he has not been given much scholarly attention. There are gaps in his biography and little of his music has been made available in modern critical edition. This study will also enable Hooper’ s contributions to be placed in the context of English musical history, and will draw comparisons and influences to others working during that time.

Because Edmund Hooper was associated with some of the greatest musical institutions in England, a certain amount of his biography is known. Hooper’ s early years are known only from information given in his will. Money to 67 poor men and women is interpreted as giving Hooper’ s age, which makes his date of birth around 1553 or 1554. He names his birthplace as Halberton, Devon, and says that he was partly brought up in Bradninch in the same county, and that he was put to school at Greenwich by ‘ his honourable master Sir James Dyer.’  It is thought that Hooper might have been at Exeter Cathedral. The Chapel Royal organist whom he replaced had also been at Exeter, and it is the closest cathedral to the locales of his youth. He had moved to Westminster Abbey as a member of the choir by 1580 (age 27), and became Master of the Choristers in 1585 (age 33) (his will mentions 38 years of service). He was also the first regularly appointed organist of the Abbey, separating for the first time the duties of organist and master of the children. He became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal on 1 March 1604 after having been a Gentleman Extraordinary (included in the 1603 list for the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth I). He was elected in the place of William Randall, and served alongside the younger Orlando Gibbons as organist for the Chapel Royal. Hooper died in London, on 14 July 1621, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey on 16 July 1621.

Hooper’ s importance is recognized by the fact that almost every surviving pre-Restoration source of English liturgical music contains at least one of his compositions, and that Hooper was employed by the most prestigious musical institutions in England. His choral music, consisting of full and verse anthems as well as service music, is found in manuscript part-book sets, now in major cathedral and university libraries, as well as the British Library in London. Hooper’ s compositions were also included in printed music of the time. Three full anthems appear in Barnard’ s First Book of Selected Church Musick (1641), Sir William Leighton commissioned Hooper for two pieces which appear in The Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614), and Hooper’ s psalm tune harmonizations appear in Thomas Este’ s The Whole Booke of Psalmes (1592) and Thomas Ravencroft’ s The Whole Booke of Psalmes (1621). Hooper also has keyboard works in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Fifty years after Hooper’ s death, his works were still being used. In 1676, his anthem “I will magnifie Thee” was included in a catalogue of Services and Anthems transcribed into the books of his Majesty’s Chapel Royal.

This dissertation will present Hooper’ s biography, compiled from records at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal. The state of church music and the structure of those two institutions specifically will also be considered presented, followed by information about all those known to have associated and worked alongside Hooper. The sources and music of each of his compositions will be discussed, and they will be compared with the work of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. The appendices will include modem critical editions of those works not previously available in print.