Henry Cooke (c. 1616 – 13 July 1672) commonly known as Captain Cooke, was an English composer, choirmaster and singer. He was a boy chorister in the

Chapel Royal A chapel royal is an establishment in the British and Canadian royal households serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the royal family. Historically, the chapel royal was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarc ...

and by the outbreak of the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. He joined the

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gove ...

cause, in the service of which he rose to the rank of captain. With the Restoration of Charles II he returned to the Chapel Royal as

Master of the Children Master of the Children is a title awarded to an adult musician who is put in charge of the musical training, and in some cases the general education (which sometimes gets offered as a priceless perk to recruit the best singers) of choir boy (or ...

and was responsible for the rebuilding of the chapel and the introduction of instrumental music into the services. The choristers in his charge included his successor and eventual son-in-law

Pelham Humfrey Pelham Humfrey (''Humphrey, Humphrys'') (1647 in London – 14 July 1674 in Windsor) was an English composer. He was the first of the new generation of English composers at the beginning of the Restoration to rise to prominence. Life and career ...

, as well as

Henry Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: ; September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer of Baroque music, most remembered for his more than 100 songs; a tragic opera, Dido and Aeneas, ''Dido and Aeneas''; and his incidental music to a version o ...

, John Blow, William Turner, Robert Smith and Michael Wise. Percy M. Young. ''A History of British Music'' (1967), p. 241 On reconstituting the choir of the Chapel Royal, Dussuaze states: Cooke was one of the five English composers who created music for Sir William Davenant's '' The Siege of Rhodes'' (1656), often called the first English opera.

References

* 1610s births 1672 deaths 17th-century English composers English male composers Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal Masters of the Children of the Chapel Royal Children of the Chapel Royal 17th-century English male musicians {{UK-composer-stub