LOCK, MATTHEW, an English musical composer of considerable reputation and of eminent merit, was born at Exeter in the early part of the seventeenth century. The precise date of his birth is not known; some, however, are of opinion that it was in 1635. Connected with the choir of the cathedral of his native city, he received the rudiments of his musical knowledge from Wake, who then held the office of organist in that place. Lock had afterwards the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Edward Gibbons, under whom he completed those studies for which he had already contracted a passion under the instructions of the organist of Exeter. On the public entry of Charles II. into London, Lock was employed to write the music for that notable occasion, and performed his task so well, and with so much satisfaction to those in authority, that he was soon afterwards appointed composer to that prince. The first piece that appeared under his name was "A little consort of Three Parts, for Viols or Violins." There is also a very pleasing piece of vocal music by him entitled, "Ne'er trouble thyself about Times or their Turnings," among the collection of glees to be met with in Playford's Catch that Catch can.
In 1673 Lock came before the public in a somewhat different phase of his art, and established for himself a true and abiding reputation. He wrote the instrumental music in Shakespeare's play of the Tempest, as it appeared during that year, and may be regarded, indeed, as the first musician in England who thus devoted his talents to the stage. He published the overture and airs to the Psyche of Shadwell in 1675, with an exceedingly violent preface, strongly marked by that unfortunate irascibility of which his contemporaries found so much reason to complain.
It was about this time that the Rev. Thomas Salmon, A.M., of Trinity College, Oxford, and a notable mathematician, came forward with a plan for greatly improving musical notation. This proposal was a very desirable one, calculated to remove many of the difficulties which attend that branch of the art; and whether of the most perfect kind or not, would at least have cleared the way for a more complete and decided scheme of notation than the musical world as yet had the good fortune to obtain. It was not destined, however, to meet with the approval of the vehement composer of Exeter. In his pamphlet, entitled Observations on a late Book called an Essay, &c., Lock loaded the scheme and its author together with the bitterest abuse, displaying an amount of personal feeling which led to the suspicion that he gave his opposition to the beneficial proposal of the mathematician more from motives of individual interest than from an unprejudiced conviction of its utility. A number of Lock's sacred pieces are to be found in the Harmonia Sacra, and in Boyce's Collection of Cathedral Music; but the great foundation on which his fame was reared is his music in Macbeth, "a lasting monument," says his biographer, "of the author's creative power and judgment." Lock died in 1677.