Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger

Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger (c. 1575 – March 1628) was an English composer and viol player of Italian descent. He straddles the line between the Renaissance and Baroque eras.

Ferrabosco was born at Greenwich, the illegitimate son of the Italian composer Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder. His mother might have been Susanna Symons, whom Alfonso the elder later married. Ferrabosco the younger was left under the guardianship of Gomer van Awsterwyke, a member of the Queen's court. Although Alfonso the elder asked for Alfonso the younger to be sent to him in Italy, where he had moved with his wife, the Queen insisted that he stay in England. Ferrabosco remained in Gomer van Awsterwyke's care until Awsterwyke's death in 1592. At this time he started a long career as a court musician, including as the private music tutor of Prince Henry.

Ferrabosco collaborated with Ben Jonson on several projects, including The Masque of Blackness (1605), and wrote music for several other masques besides. His music was published by John Browne in 1609, including a number of settings of poems by John Donne and Thomas Campion, as well as lute and viol music. He frequently wrote in the new declamatory Baroque style, and although he never went to Italy, he was well aware of contemporary Italian music.

Ferrabosco the younger's reputation was built largely on his prowess as a viol player, and even more so his compositions for viol consort. These were highly idiomatic works, with lots of divisions, and virtuosic lines. He also wrote many In Nomines, which were great examples of that popular genre, without the pedantic bent many later In nomines possessed. Ferrabosco was also one of the first to write lyra viol music in tablature, along with Coprario, and wrote a book of Lessons for the lyra viol.

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