ABSTRACT
A music theorist John Birchensha has been something of an enigma. He was the only professional musician to appear at a meeting of the Society in the seventeenth century, though he was never elected a fellow. Perhaps the nature of his profession would have been an obstacle to that, despite his apparent avoidance of any kind of musical employment that could be thought of as menial. Biographical information about Birchensha is frustratingly scant. His dates of birth and death, the identities of his parents and where he received his education and musical training all remain matters of speculation rather than of fact. In his memoir, Anthony Wood described Birchensha as ‘a gentile man’ and ‘descended of a good family’. Others convey a similar impression, including Matthew Locke, who referred to him as ‘a Gentleman strugling under an obligation beneath his Birth, Education, or Knowledge’.
