Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Youll, Henry

683506Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 63 — Youll, Henry1900Henry Davey

YOULD, HENRY (fl. 1608), musician, seems to have been a household musician in the family of one Edward Bacon, and teacher of his four sons, about the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1608, when the four were all at the university, Youll dedicated to them his only known publication, ‘Canzonets to three Voyces, newly composed by Henry Youll, Practitioner in the Art of Musicke.’ The work, in three part-books, contains twenty-four compositions, of which the last six are fa-las; it was one of the last works printed by Thomas Este or East [q. v.] Youll wrote for cantus, altus, and bassus, using the alto and tenor clefs. The copy of the ‘Canzonets’ in the British Museum Library seems to be unique. None of the pieces have been printed in modern notation. Four of the poems are in Oliphant's ‘La Musa Madrigalesca.’ The compositions, judged by the separate voice parts, appear bright and enlivening, and not without science, though they are by no means profound conceptions. There is a complete list of the twenty-four pieces in Rimbault's ‘Bibliotheca Madrigaliana’ (p. 27); but the part-books are there inaccurately described as cantus, tenor, and bass.

[Youll's Canzonets, in the library of the Brit. Mus.; Davey's Hist. of English Music, pp. 173, 230.]

H. D.