Robert White (composer)

Robert White (also Whyte; c. 1538 – 1574) probably born in Holborn, a district of London, was a catholic English composer whose liturgical music to Latin texts is considered particularly fine. His surviving works include a setting of verses from Lamentations, and instrumental music for viols.

Thomas Morley, in his A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597) extols him as one of the greatest English composers, equal to Orlando di Lasso. He notes White's bold harmonies, and includes him in a list of seven eminent Tudor composers that includes "Fayrfax, Taverner, Sheppard, Whyte, Parsons and Mr Byrd." Some MS partbooks now at Christ Church, Oxford dated about 1581 contain the tribute "Maxima musarum nostrarum gloria White' Tu peris, actemum sed tua musa manet" ("Thou, O White, greatest glory of our muses, dost perish, but thy muse endureth for ever").

According to Arnold, the first glimpse we get of Robert White, son of an organ builder, is as a chorister, and then an adult singer in the choir of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1554-1562. During that time, in 1560, he received a Bachelorship of Music from Cambridge University, and in 1562 he moved the few miles to Ely, where he succeeded his father-in-law Christopher Tye as Master of the Choristers and married Christopher Tye's daughter in 1565.

He accepted a similar post at Chester Cathedral in 1566, where he succeeded Richard Saywell and took part in the Chester Whitsuntide pageants during the years 1567-1569. Such was his reputation as a choir trainer that in 1570 he was appointed organist and master of the choristers of Westminster Abbey.

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