Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger

Alfonso Ferrabosco called the Younger (c. 1575 in Greenwich, buried March 11, 1628 ) was an English composer and viol player of Italian descent. He was the illegitimate son of composer Alfonso Ferrabosco the elderly.

Ferrabosco lived on the threshold of the Renaissance to Baroque music. His mother may have been Susanna Symons, who later became his father's wife. Up to his death in 1592 he remained under the guardianship of Gomer van Awsterwyke, a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Although his father begged to bring him the son to Italy, where he himself lived with his wife, was the Queen that he should remain in England. Here he began his career as a court musician and private music tutor of Prince Henry.

Ferrabosco worked on some works together with Ben Jonson, in The Masque of Blackness ( 1605 ) and other masques, for which he composed the incidental music. His music was published in 1609 by John Browne. Among the published works are settings of John Donne and Thomas Campion, lute and viol music. Ferrabosco wrote his works often in the then-emerging Baroque style; although he had never been to Italy, he knew the contemporary Italian style well.

His reputation Ferrabosco owed ​​largely to his ability as a viol player, even more so his compositions for the viol consort. They have a very individual personal style, still with many diminutions and virtuoso passages. He also wrote many In - Nomine - musical settings that can serve as a model of this musical genre. Ferrabosco was alongside John Cooper one of the first, the viol music in tablature listed. He wrote a book of lessons, that is, exercises for the viola da gamba.