Giles Farnaby

Giles Farnaby (ca. 1563-1640) composed music for the English early keyboard instrument, the virginal. He also may have been a virginal maker. His family were wood workers, and although he had a music degree from Oxford, Farnaby was known to have worked as a joiner. Most of his published music appeared in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. His fantasias in variation form are highly inventive, while other pieces, such as A Toye, Giles Farnaby's Dream, and Tower Hill, are unusually evocative. Farnaby was not as skillful as others of the period at polyphonic writing, demonstrated by his sacred and secular part songs.