John Redford (died November 1547) was a major English composer and organist of the Tudor period. From about 1525 he was organist at St Paul's Cathedral (succeeding Thomas Hickman) and choirmaster there from 1534. Many of his works are represented in the Mulliner Book. All his organ music is liturgical and mostly vocal in style, but some are in a distinctively keyboard style containing idiomatic ornamentation, and require high technical skill. Unlike most of his colleagues
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John Redford (died November 1547) was a major English composer and organist of the Tudor period. From about 1525 he was organist at St Paul's Cathedral (succeeding Thomas Hickman) and choirmaster there from 1534. Many of his works are represented in the Mulliner Book. All his organ music is liturgical and mostly vocal in style, but some are in a distinctively keyboard style containing idiomatic ornamentation, and require high technical skill. Unlike most of his colleagues, Redford also wrote songs and produced masques, or dramatic entertainment for the court. As he also held the post of Almoner and Master of the Choristers, Redford was in overall charge of the choristers' education, and this included performing entertainments at court. The most celebrated of these entertainments is the morality play, The Play of Wyt and Science (written ca 1530-1550), some of which is now lost. He also wrote a number of poems, including the 23 verse Nolo mortem peccatoris, which was set to music by Thomas Morley, who was a later organist at St. Paul's.
