Robert Fayrfax enjoyed royal favour under Henry VIII as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. He was one of the most important English composers of his generation and has had the posthumous advantage that a number of his works have survived.

Church Music

Fayrfax is in particular associated with the cyclic Mass (settings of the Mass in which related material appears in each section, generally based on a plainsong tenor). His settings of the Magnificat are of alternate verses, to be interspersed, according to common practice, by verses sung to plainchant.

Secular Music

Fayrfax wrote a number of part-songs, of which some seven survive.