John Ward

English composer
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Quick Facts
Baptized:
Sept. 8, 1571, Canterbury, Eng.
Died:
before August 1638, Great Ilford, Essex?

John Ward (baptized Sept. 8, 1571, Canterbury, Eng.—died before August 1638, Great Ilford, Essex?) was a composer of instrumental and choral music known for his madrigals. He published his First Set of English Madrigals in 1613; it was republished in volume 19 (1922) of The English Madrigal School. Works by Ward appeared in William Leighton’s Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowful Soule (1614), Thomas Ravenscroft’s Whole Booke of Psalmes (1621), and John Barnard’s Selected Church Musick (1641). Ward’s anthem Let God Arise was especially popular. The reputation of his viol music persisted long after his death; it is mentioned in Christopher Simpson’s Compendium (1665) and Thomas Mace’s Musick’s Monument (1676).

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.