Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
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Composer Biography: Peter Philips (c1560-1628)
Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
(Also Peter Philipps, Peter Phillips, Pierre Philippe, Pietro Philippi, and Petrus Philippus)
Peter Philips, although he spent most of his life in Europe, was one of the biggest names in English music. He
was an organist and a Catholic priest, and his work could be heard from Rome to London to Brussels, and
beyond.
He was one of the great keyboard virtuosos of his time, and transcribed or arranged several Italian motets and
madrigals by Orlando Lassus (1532-1594), Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina (c1525-1594), and Giulio Caccini (1551-
1618). Some of his keyboard works are found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, and he wrote many sacred
choral works as well.
He was possibly born in London, although there are stories that he came from Devonshire. Nothing is known
about his family, but they weren’t particularly wealthy. They were, however, particularly Catholic, and that
would color Philips’ life.
The first we hear of him, Philips was a choirboy at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1574, serving under
Sebastian Westcot (d.1582), who had also trained William Byrd 20 years earlier. Philips must have been close
to Westcot, as he stayed at the older man’s house until Westcot died. He was named as a beneficiary in
Westcot’s will.
He was possibly also one of William Byrd’s students, along with Thomas Morley (c1557-1602) and Thomas
Tomkins (1572-1656), Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623), and John Bull (c1562-1628).
That same year (1582), Philips had to emigrate because he was Catholic. He landed in Flanders, Europe’s third
biggest musical center (after Rome and Paris). He stayed for a bit, and then headed out for Rome, the center
of both Catholicism and music. There, he was in the service of Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589), with whom he
stayed for three years. At the same time, he was organist at the English Jesuit College in Rome from 1582-
1585.
In 1585, he met Thomas, third Baron Paget (c1544-1590) and became a court musician for him instead. The
two left Rome, traveling over the next few years to Genoa, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, and finally Antwerp, where
Philips settled in 1590, when Paget died.
After he settled, Philips married and gained a precarious living by teaching the virginal to children. In 1593, he
went to Amsterdam to see and hear Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), whose reputation was already
huge. On his way home from that exciting visit, he was denounced by another Englishman for conspiring to
assassinate Queen Elizabeth. He was temporarily jailed at The Hague, and during his incarceration, he
composed both the pavan and galliard Doloroso that are in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (more on that later).
He translated the accusations against him during his trial himself. He was freed for lack of proof.
When he returned to Brussels, he was employed as organist in the chapel of Albert VII, Archduke of Austria,
who’d been appointed governor of the Low Countries in 1595, two years earlier.
After Philips’ wife and child died, he was ordained as a priest in 1601 or so, and became canon at Soignies in
1610. He also became a canon at Beithune in 1622 or 1623. These were meager livings, but at least he knew
that he had a regular income.
In his new position at Albert VII’s court, he met the best musicians of the time, including Girolamo Frescobaldi
(1583-1643), who visited the Low Countries between 1601 and 1608, and John Bull (c1562-1628), who had
also fled England but for different reasons: Bull had been charged with adultery.
Philips’ was close to fellow organist Peter Cornet (c1575-1633), who worked for the Archduchess Isabella, wife
of Philips’ employer.
Philips wasn’t very well known in England during his lifetime, but he was famous in northern Europe as a fine
organist and versatile composer. He’s considered second only to William Byrd as the most published English
composer of his day. His music for keyboards and instrumental ensembles are in the traditional English style,
and his Italian madrigals (in three books, from 1596-1603) and his motets (five books from 1612-1628),
including some for double choir, show continental, especially Roman, influence.
He was important in bringing the English musical style to the Continent and he was probably the most famous
English composer of his day in Northern Europe.
Philips composed Masses, hundreds of motets (sacred madrigals), other sacred works, madrigals (secular
motets), 27 pieces for virginal, and pieces for viols. His religious music was entirely meant for Catholic use,
unlike that of Catholics in England, who either composed for Anglican services or secretly composed for
Catholic uses (see composer biographies on William Byrd and Thomas Tallis).
He produced three books of madrigals, two books of choral motets, three books of concertato motets
(instrumental) of one-to-three voices with continuo accompaniment, a book of Litanies (a form of musical
prayer in both Jewish and Christian traditions), and a book of bicinia (pedagogical music in two parts) with
French texts.
His keyboard music was preserved in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.
His madrigals (secular vocal music) belong to a conservative Italian tradition, probably thanks to his training in
Rome. He uses colorful textures and sonorities, although his instrumental motets show him keeping up with
the latest trends and styles. His keyboard music includes transcriptions and reworking of well-known Italian
madrigals, one of which is Giulo Romola Caccini’s (15510-1618) monody (chant) Amarilli.
His first set of Cantiones sacre (in five voices) was printed by Pierre Phalese the Younger (dates unknown) in
1612, followed in 1613 by a second set for double chorus. Later publications contained sacred works for two
and three voices, as well as some for solo with basso continuo and a set of Litanies (musical prayer, petitions
mostly) to the Blessed Virgin in four to nine voices, which appeared between 1613-1633 (there is one source
that says that Philips died in 1633 rather than 1628, but it’s more likely that the pieces were published
posthumously).
He put together one book, called Les Rossignols spirituels, that was an arrangement of popular melodies
adapted to sacred texts, in 1616.
He used a lot of different techniques. He used the imitative technique (see Composer Biography: Johannes
Ciconia) in a variety of ways, exhibiting considerable freedom, and modifying and combining different forms
with imagination and skill. Like Flemish composer Orlando Lassus (1532-1594), he often imitated a rhythmic
pattern or a melodic contour throughout a piece.
Philips’ Alma Redemptoris Mater, a richly polyphonic work, opens with a motif that’s imitated by three voices
and then inverted by the other two voices. After each voice has sung the motif once, that voice presents the
motif in a new form, perhaps borrowing a motif from one of the other voices.
His Elegi abjectus, esse uses real imitation in the opening among three voices. A fourth voice offers a more
tonal answer, and the alto sings freely, disregarding the motif altogether. The motif is presented without
interruption by the tenor; the other three voices break the motif with silence.
Another piece, Ascendit Deus, is simpler, with broken major triads in some sections, bright melismas in others,
and a rousing chordal final “alleluia” section. The setting for the words “et Dominus” uses imitation in all its
forms: a real answer, a tonal answer, imitation by inversion, and imitation of rhythmic patterns.
Philips draws on chant for Pater Noster, which uses the old cantus firmus style (with the chant sung slowly in
the tenor line while the other parts trip merrily around it) and for his Ave Maria, Regina coeli, and Salve
Regina, which use the paraphrase technique. He particularly shows his expertise with madrigals in the Salve
Regina.
His earliest surviving piece is a pavan dated 1580, that’s in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. It was the subject of
many variations by Dutchman Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), and Thomas Morley (c1557-1602), and
John Dowland (1563-1626), both British.
The compiler of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, Francis Tregian the Younger, also a Catholic, knew Philips from
the court of Brussels in 1603. Tregian may have been responsible for importing Philips’ works to England.
Flemish composer Andreas Pevernage (c1542-1591) collected madrigals and dedicated one of his collections
to Philips, who had five pieces in the book. The madrigal had taken such firm root in England by then that it
was second only to Italy in output.
Philips died in 1628, probably in Brussels, and was buried there.
Sources
“A Dictionary of Early Music; From the Troubadours to Monteverdi,” by Jerome and Elizabeth Roche. Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1981.
“Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music,” by Don Michael Randel. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, 1978.
“The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music,” edited by Stanley Sadie. W.W. Norton & Co., New York,
1994.
“The New Grove High Renaissance Masters,” by Jeremy Noble, Gustave Reese, Lewis Lockwood, James Harr,
Joseph Kerman, Robert Stevenson. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1984.
“Music in the Renaissance,” by Gustave Reese. W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1959.