Richard Sampson

(c.1470-1554)

English churchman and composer. Dean of the Chappell Royal 1516-54. Bishop of Chichester, Coventry, and Lichfield, from 1536. Sampson has left two motets in a MS dating from c.1517-1520: a four-part Psallite felices, believed to have been written in honor of Henry VIII, and a five-part Quam pulchra es. The latter, like Johnson's Domine in virtute tua, is noteworthy for its considerable use, early for England, of imitation technique. The English were in no haste to adopt the main musical characteristic of the Late Renaissance.



Latin Church Music 1460-1575: The Composers   |   IV M: England Through 1635