Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Matthew Locke
(ca. 1621 - August 1677) was an English Baroque composer and music
theorist. As a boy, Locke was trained in the choir of Exeter Cathedral,
under Edward Gibbons, the brother of Orlando Gibbons. At the age of
eighteen Locke travelled in the Netherlands, possibly converting to
Roman Catholicism at the time. Locke, with Christopher Gibbons (the son
of Orlando), composed the score for Cupid and Death, the 1653 masque by
Caroline era playwright James Shirley. Their score for that work is the
sole surviving score for a dramatic work from that era. Locke was one of
the quintet of composers who provided music for The Siege of Rhodes
(1656), the breakthrough early opera by Sir William Davenant.
