Philips, Peter (1561–1628)

English organist and composer. He was famous as an organist throughout the Netherlands and was probably the best-known English composer in northern Europe. His collections of madrigals and motets are Roman in style, with Italianate word painting and polyphony; they were reprinted many times in Antwerp.

Philips sang in the choir of St Paul's Cathedral as a boy. He left England in 1582, probably because he was a Roman Catholic; he was received there at the English College, where he became organist. He travelled in Italy and Spain, settled at Antwerp in 1590, and became a canon at the collegiate church of Soignies. In 1585, he entered the service of Lord Thomas Paget and spent five years travelling through Italy, Spain, and France. He settled in Brussels in 1589, and on Paget's death in 1590 moved to Antwerp. In 1593, returning from a visit to hear Jan Sweelinck play in Amsterdam, he was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth; he was released. In 1597, he entered the household of the Archduke Albert in Brussels; he was appointed organist at the royal chapel there in 1611, and remained there until the Archduke's death in 1621. He was then appointed chaplain of the church of Saint-Germain at Tirlemont and in about 1623 became canon of Béthune, but may not have resided at either place.

Some of Philips' large output of keyboard music is preserved in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. It belongs to the English tradition, with the most inventive pieces being based on madrigals.

Works Church music Masses, 106 motets published in Paradisus sacris cantionibus (Antwerp, 1628), hymns, Sacrae cantiones.

Chamber madrigals; fantasies, pavanes, and galliards for various instruments; organ and virginal pieces.