John Wilbye
(1574 -- 1638)
John Wilbye, who never married, writes of nothing but love; 
he is the most perfect artist of the school. Kerman pays 
tribute to 'the seriousness of his approach, the sensitivity 
of his grasp of poetry and language, the polish of his style 
and the subtlety of his musical ideas and their treatment', 
and compares him to Marenzio. Born at Diss in Norfolk i
n 1574, his father, a well-to-do tanner, left the boy his lute; 
when the Cornwallis daughter of neighboring Brome Hall 
married Sir Thomas Kitson of Hengrave, she took young 
Wilbye with her to provide music and he spent the rest 
of his life doing so. Up to our own destructive time 
Hengrave still possessed the collections of the Kitsons, 
portraits, manuscripts, inventories, which tell us what 
a part music played in their lives: payments for kersey 
for the musicians, seven cornets, a treble viol, a pair 
of virginals, for 'stringing, tuning and fretting my 
mistress' lute', for 'the musicians of Swan Alley 
for many times playing with their instruments 
before my master and mistress.' A few miles 
away across the fields was Rushbrooke of 
the Jermyns--a fine Elizabethan house 
pulled down by Lord Rothschild after 
the war. There resided George 
Kirby, another composer 
and friend of Wilbye: 
they both set the 
words 'Alas, 
what hope 
of speeding' 
in friendly rivalry.


excerpted from:
(http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/Englandthru1635.html)
My thanks to Chris Whent for his outstanding site and pages 
of information which I absolutely recommend to the reader, 
as well as for his radio programme, likewise recommended.