Edwards, Richard

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Edwards, Richard

Edwards, Richard, English poet, dramatist, and composer; b. Somerset, 1524; d. London, Oct. 31, 1566. He was educated at Corpus Christi Coll., Oxford, and at Christ Church, Oxford (M.A., 1547). He became a member of the Chapel Royal in London, where he was made Master of the Children in 1561. With the choirboys there, he presented his play with his own songs, Damon and Pithias (Lincoln’s Inn, 1564). His most celebrated musical work was the partsong In goinge to my naked bedde, written to his own text, and included in his collection of verse The Paradyse of Daynty Devises (1576; ed. by E. Fellowes in The English Madrigal School, XXXVI).

Bibliography

L. Bradner, The Life and Poems ofR. E. (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1927).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire