Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barnard, John (fl.1641)
BARNARD, JOHN (fl. 1641), musician, of whose life nothing else is known, was a minor canon of St. Paul's in the reign of Charles I. He was the first who made a collection of cathedral music, and it is through his most valuable collection that some of the finest specimens of the English school of the sixteenth century have been preserved. The work was published in 1641 under the title of ‘The First Book of selected Church Musick, consisting of Services and Anthems, such as are now used in the Cathedrall and Collegiat Churches of this Kingdome. Never before printed. Whereby such Bookes as were heretofore with much difficulty and charges, transcribed for the use of the Quire, are now to the saving of much Labour and expence, publisht for the general good of all such as shall desire them either for publick or private exercise. Collected out of divers approved Authors.’ A complete list of the contents of the work is given in Grove's Dictionary under ‘Barnard.’ No absolutely perfect set of the part-books is known to exist, though the set in Hereford cathedral approaches most nearly to completion. A score has been constructed by Mr. John Bishop, of Cheltenham, but is unpublished; it is in the British Museum. All the composers represented in the work were dead at the time of its compilation, the collector having intended to give selections from living writers in a future publication, which never appeared. In the Sacred Harmonic Library many of the manuscript collections made by Barnard for his work are preserved, together with a set of the published part-books, second only to the Hereford set. A very imperfect set is in the British Museum.
[Burney's History of Music; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.]