LAWES, HENRY

(baptized Jan. 5, 1596, Dinton, Wiltshire, Eng.d. Oct. 21, 1662, London), English composer noted for his continuo songs. Lawes studied under one of the foremost English musicians of the time, John Coperario, and became a gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1626 and a royal musician for lutes and voices in 1631. In 1634 he wrote the music for Thomas Carew's masque Coelum Britannicum and for John Milton's Comus, and in 1636, for Sir William Davenant's The Triumph of the Prince d'Amour (with his brother William Lawes). His Choice Psalmes (1648) also contained music by his brother and a commendatory sonnet by Milton. He lost his court appointments during the English Civil Wars (164251) but regained them at the Restoration (1660). In 1656 he contributed music to Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes. Lawes's songs, influenced by the Italian recitative style, are characterized by rhyme emphasis, word repetition, many cadences, and deliberate rhythmic discontinuity.