John Jenkins (composer)

He wrote a notable piece of programme music consisting of a pavane and galliard depicting the clash of opposing sides, the mourning for the dead and the celebration of victory after the siege of Newark (1646).

It was in these years, during the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, in the absence of much competition or organised music-making, that Jenkins took the occasion to write more than 70 suites for amateur household players.

Although the viol consort was less fashionable in the court of king Charles II, Roger North wrote: Something of Jenkins's own temperament is indicated by his setting the religious poetry of George Herbert to music.

He is noted for developing the viol consort fantasia, being influenced in the 1630s by an earlier generation of English composers including Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger, Thomas Lupo, John Coprario and Orlando Gibbons.

4 in D major (BWV 1068–69) recalled the sensibility of the physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne; however, the melancholic pavans, meditative fantasias and vigorous allemands of Jenkins are closer in era, antique style and temperament, to his Norfolk contemporary than Bach.