Matthew Locke (composer)

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Matthew Locke (c. 1621 – August 1677) was an English Baroque composer and music theorist. He was born in Exeter and sang as a boy in Exeter Cathedral’s choir under Edward Gibbons. At about eighteen he went to the Netherlands, where he may have converted to Roman Catholicism.

Locke worked with Christopher Gibbons to compose the score for Cupid and Death, a 1653 masque by James Shirley; this is the only surviving score for a dramatic work from that era. He was part of the group of five composers for The Siege of Rhodes (1656), William Davenant’s early opera, and wrote music for Davenant’s The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659). He wrote the processional music for the coronation of Charles II. In 1673 his music theory treatise Melothesia was published. He was described as Composer in Ordinary to His Majesty and organist of the Queen’s chapel, serving Charles II and Catherine of Braganza. He also held posts as Composer of the Wind Music and for the Violins; Henry Purcell, who would become a great composer, succeeded him as the Violins composer and was a family friend who may have been influenced by Locke. Purcell wrote an ode on Locke’s death. In 1675 Locke composed the music for Thomas Shadwell’s Psyche.