{{Short description|English composer, organist and choirmaster}} {{about||the Jamaican soccer player|Richard Davy (footballer)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
'''Richard Davy''' (c. 1465–1538) was a Renaissance composer, organist and choirmaster, one of the most represented in the Eton Choirbook.
==Biography== Little is known about the life of Richard Davy. His name was a common one in Devon and he may have been born there. He was a scholar of Magdalen College, Oxford, and acted as choir master and organist at least in the period 1490-2.<ref name="Caldwell1998">J. Caldwell, ''The Oxford History of English Music'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 196-201.</ref> Churchwardens' accounts for Ashburton, Devon, mention a 'Dom. Richardus Dave:' from 1493-5, where he may have been acting as a chaplain or as master of the nearby school at St. Lawrence Chapel.<ref>I. Rumbold and J. King, ed., ''Musicology and sister disciplines: past, present, future: proceedings of the 16th International Congress of the International Musicological Society, London, 1997'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 564.</ref> He may then have moved to Exeter Cathedral to be vicar choral in the period 1497-1506.<ref name="Caldwell1998"/>
==Work and influence== Davy is the third most represented composer in the Eton choirbook, with ten compositions including the votive antiphon ''O Domine celi terreque creator'', which according to an inscription in Eton was composed in a single day.<ref>{{cite web |title=GB-WRec MS 178 (Eton Choirbook), Folio 59 |url=https://www.diamm.ac.uk/sources/202/#/images?p=59 |website=DIAMM |publisher=Eton College Library |access-date=10 April 2025}}</ref> His work is considered more florid than that of his contemporaries Robert Fayrfax and William Cornish and may have had considerable impact on later figures such as John Taverner.<ref name="Caldwell1998"/>
==Notes== {{reflist|2}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Davy, Richard}} Category:English Renaissance composers Category:English classical organists Category:English choral conductors Category:English male conductors (music) Category:1465 births Category:1507 deaths Category:15th-century English composers Category:16th-century English composers Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:English male classical composers Category:English male classical organists