English composer, organist and music theorist. He was educated at Oxford and studied with William Byrd.

 

Although he composed a number of hymns and psalms, he is best known for his secular songs, including those published in the First Booke of Ayres (1600) and for the treatise A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musick (1597).

 

Editing and printing several anthologies of Italian music, he was instrumental in bringing the Italian madrigal to England.

 

He also edited The Triumphes of Oriana (published 1603), the most important collection of English madrigals.