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William Brade (1560 – 26 February 1630) was an English composer, violinist, and viol player of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, mainly active in northern Germany. He was the first Englishman to write a canzona, an Italian form, and probably the first to write a piece for solo violin.
Around 1590 he left England to pursue a musical career in Germany, as did several other prominent English musicians, sensing better job opportunities. He switched employments often between the various courts in north Germany and Denmark. Between his arrival in Germany, sometime around 1590, he worked for the Brandenburg court; between 1594 he worked for Christian IV of Denmark in Copenhagen; then until 1599 he was back in Brandenburg. He returned that year to Copenhagen, where he stayed until 1606. From 1606 he worked at Bückeburg in Brunswick-Lüneburg. From 1608 he was employed in Hamburg, but he returned to Bückeburg in 1610. Evidently by 1612 he was again planning on switching jobs, for a letter surviving from that year, written by the count at Bückeburg, tells the Hamburg court pithily that he was a “wanton, mischievous fellow and should not be allowed to have his way.”
In spite of the warning by his former employer, by 1613 he was working in Hamburg. Two years later he returned to Copenhagen, but in 1618 he moved on to Halle where he obtained the position of kapellmeister to the Prince of Magdeburg, Christian Wilhelm of Brandenburg. By 1619 he was in Berlin, and the next year he returned to Copenhagen yet again. Two years later he moved to Gottorp in Schleswig-Holstein, where he served as director of the Hofkapelle until 1625.
His last years were spent in Hamburg, one of the few refuges available within Germany from the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War. There is no evidence that he ever returned to England.
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