John Eccles

Who was John Eccles?

John Eccles was an English composer.

Born in London, eldest son of professional musician Solomon Eccles, John Eccles was appointed to the King's Private Music in 1694, and in 1700 became Master of the King's Musick. Also in 1700 he finished second in a competition to write music for William Congreve's masque The Judgement of Paris.

Eccles was very active as a composer for the theatre, and from the 1690s wrote a large amount of incidental music including music for Congreve's Love for Love, John Dryden's The Spanish Friar and William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Jointly with Henry Purcell he wrote incidental music for Thomas d'Urfey's Don Quixote. He became a composer to Drury Lane theatre in 1693 and when some of the actors broke off to form their own company at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1695, he composed music for them as well. His opera Rinaldo and Armida has recently been published in the Recent Researches of the Music of the Baroque Era series, edited by Steven Plank. Details of publication.

Eccles also wrote music for the coronation of Queen Anne and a number of songs. Many of his most famous songs, such as "I burn, I burn" were composed for actress-singer Anne Bracegirdle to perform.