Biography
Farrant performed in the chorus under Edward VI and Mary Tudor before taking up duties as composer and musician in his capacity as Master of the Chapel Royal in Windsor. Among his output were numerous secular consort songs together with dramatic works staged for the Queen each winter. None of those plays survive, yet references have kept three titles intact: Ajax and Ulysses, Quintus Fabius, and King Xerxes. From Ajax and from a second drama centered on Panthea, two surviving songs were scored for solo voice supported by what is presumed to have been viol accompaniment. His liturgical compositions, by contrast, remain and employ chordal textures that reveal a sharp sensitivity to pathos and emotional balance. Although the anthems hold limited musical distinction, one exhibits an unprecedented structural feature. The sole surviving example, Call to Remembrance, stands as the earliest known verse anthem; a solo voice in the mean repeats its straightforward melodic line, after which the final verse unites SATB forces.