John Sheppard (composer)

John Sheppard (also Shepherd, c. 1515 – December 1558) was an English composer of the Renaissance.

Sheppard's birth date can be placed in the second decade of the 16th century, based on his claims of composing in 1534. Otherwise, little is known about Sheppard in the years preceding his presence in Magdalen College, Oxford; it is here that he attended Michaelmas in 1543 as Informator choristarum. Sheppard is in the list of the Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1552; he may have entered this position directly after his departure from Magdalen, but because of the gap in Chapel Royal records from 1547, this is not certain. He presumably remained active at the chapel up to the year of his death; on New Year's Day 1556 he presented a roll of songs to Mary Tudor. In 1554 he supplicated, apparently unsuccessfully, for the degree of Doctor of Music at Oxford University, stating that he had studied music for 20 years and had "composed many songs". Sheppard's death in December 1558 is marked by the making of his will on 1 December and by his burial on 21 December; he was awarded liveries for the funeral of Queen Mary on 13 December and for the coronation of Elizabeth I on 15 January 1559, despite his date of burial.

Almost all of Sheppard's compositions for the Latin liturgy exist in post-Reformation anthologies. The survival of his music is owed greatly to the five surviving Baldwin partbooks at Christ Church, Oxford (GB-Och Mus. 979-83), copied in 1575. Four of Sheppard's masses can be found in the Gyffard Partbooks (GB-Lbl Add. 17802-5), including his setting of The Western Wynde, which is modeled on Taverner's plan. The so-called Gyffard Partbooks are a set of four manuscript part books, probably copied for Dr. Roger Gyffard during the 1570s. Much of the Gyffard music may have been composed during Sheppard's Magdalen years (the compiler had formerly been a fellow of Merton College, Oxford). Additionally, a set of six partbooks (GB-Ob Tenbury 807-11; missing the superius) contains some of Sheppard's votive antiphons and ritual music.

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