Robert Carver CRSA (also Carvor, Arnot;[1] c. 1485 – c. 1570) was a Scottish Canon regular and composer of Christian sacred music during the Renaissance.
Carver's work, noted for the gradual build-up of ideas towards a resolution in the final passages, is still performed and recorded today.
Carver was influenced by composers in continental Europe, and his surviving music differs greatly from that produced by many of his contemporaries in Scotland or England at the time.
A recently rediscovered charter book for the abbey, with upwards of 50 examples of Carver's signature, suggests that he spent the whole of his long life as a canon there, having entered the community in 1508 and living there until the establishment was destroyed by Protestant reformers in 1559.
For the complete works of Carver see Musica Scotica I: The Complete Works of Robert Carver and Two Anonymous Masses: Editions of Early Scottish Music, edited by Kenneth Elliott, University of Glasgow Music Department Publication, 31 October 1996.