English musician, organist, choirmaster, and producer of plays. Richard Farrant was attached to the Chapel Royal, though not continuously, from the reign of Edward VI until he died in 1580. In 1564, he was appointed master of the Choristers and organist at St George's Chapel. In 1576 he was appointed deputy to William Hunnis, Director of the Children of the Chapel Royal. His Morning, Communion, and Evening service (à 4) in A minor survives also in G minor. The fine short anthems Call to remembrance and Hide not thou thy face help to give Farrant a place in the musical history of the period out of proportion to his small output. Lord, for thy tender mercies'sake, sometimes ascribed to Farrant is more likely by Tye, or the elder John Hilton (d. 1608).1 Two keyboard pieces survive in MS.
Farrant converted Blackfriars, the old monastery, into a private theatre in 1574.
1. Hilton was a lay-clerk and member of the choir at Lincoln Cathedral in 1584, and became assistant organist there before he left in 1594 to be organist at Trinity College, Cambridge. Like Farrant, he wrote a Call to remembrance Return to Text