William Boyce

William Boyce was an English composer, organist, editor, and royal musician, baptized in London in 1711. He entered the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral as a boy and, after his voice changed, studied with the cathedral organist Maurice Greene. His professional career included organist posts in London, appointment as a composer to the Chapel Royal, succession to Greene as Master of the King’s Musick after Greene’s death in 1755, and appointment as one of the organists of the Chapel Royal in 1758.

Boyce wrote church services, anthems, odes for royal occasions, theatre music, instrumental works, and the song “Heart of Oak.” Increasing deafness eventually restricted his work as an organist, but it redirected part of his career toward scholarship and editing. His three-volume Cathedral Music, published between 1760 and 1773, preserved important English sacred works by earlier composers including Tallis, Byrd, and Purcell and became a major resource for Anglican church music.

Hymnary.org attributes the chant used with this canticle to Boyce and conventionally dates it to 1740. The exact first source of this particular chant is less clearly documented than Boyce’s broader career, so the date is best treated as the standard tune-catalogue date rather than as a firmly established composition occasion.