John Bull

John Bull (1562-1628) was an English composer and virtuoso keyboardist whose public career was marked by religious and political upheavals and whose personal life was marred by scandal. A doctor of music at Oxford and Cambridge and organist at the King's Chapel, Bull fled to the Netherlands to avoid a charge of adultery, and spent the rest of his life as an organist in Antwerp. A composer in the same vein as Byrd and Tallis, Bull wrote choral works in a "free-voiced" contrapuntal style, and his keyboard pieces, canons, and songs were influenced by styles he acquired while traveling in Europe.