Biography
Thomas Vautor, an English composer, saw all his surviving compositions gathered in a lone madrigal collection titled "The First Set, beeing Songs of Divers Ayres and Natures, of Five and Six Parts, Apt for Viols and Voyces." He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Oxford in 1616 and spent several years in the service of the Duke of Buckingham. Although a number of his madrigals originated during the 1590s, the pieces that appeared later in the published volume often adopted a more conservative manner. No single trait defines Vautor’s output; he sometimes relied on repetition, at other moments turned to declarative gestures, and elsewhere introduced expressive dissonances. His contrapuntal passages reveal his compositional command, while certain madrigals display a lighter, gentler touch. Among the works are the pieces “Dainty fine bird,” “Weepe, weepe, mine eyes,” “Sweet Suffolk owle,” and “Shepherd and nymphs.”