Ricercar - Music

Thomas Simpson 1582-1628 Was An English Composer. Simpson Was Born In Milton-Next-Sittingbourne Now Milton Regis Kent. There Is No Record Of His First Twenty-Five Years Apart From His Baptism 1st April . He Seems To Have Been Writing Music By About 1602 When A Surviving Manuscript Appears To Have Been Written. Not Long After This He Travelled To Germany As His Name Appears As A Musician Serving Under The Elector Palatine At The Heidelberg Court. Simpson's Wife Was French Which Might Indicate That He Spent Time In France. Most Of Simpson's Surviving Music Is In Three Large Collections. The First Opusculum Neuwer Pavanen 1610 Was Published When He Was At Heidelberg And Contains Both Original Compositions And Arrangements Of Pieces By Dowland Farmer And Others. The Second Collection Opus Neuwer Paduanen 1611 Contains Only His Own Compositions Galliards Pavans And Various Other Works. The Third Taffel-Consort 1621 Reverts To A Micture Of Original Compositions And Arrangements And Was Publsihed When Simpson Was Employed At The Bückeburg Court Of Count Ernst III Of Holstein-Schaumburg. He Left Germany To Work At The Court Of The Danish King Christian IV As A Violist From 1622 To 1625. He Seems To Have Stayed On In Copenhagen And Died In 1628. read less