Well-known in his day as one of the most important contributors to East’s Whole Book of Psalms (1592), Farmer was in the service of the Earl of Oxford who, more than any other nobleman, established the professional Elizabethan theatre. In the year that Burbidge opened the Globe Theatre, these 18 madrigals (the most famous is probably Fair Phyllis) gave the composer an attractive place in the history of English music.