Thomas Strengthfeild

Thomas Strengthfeild was an English composer about whom very little is known. His activity is documented around 1657, although his dates of birth and death are not known with certainty.

Only a group of suites for harpsichord by him survives, included in the Elizabeth Rogers Virginal Book, a manuscript dated 27 February 1656/7 according to the calendar of the time. His brief dance movements follow the conventional style of keyboard music written in England in those years.

Strengthfeild is said to have been a harpsichord teacher during the Commonwealth, and Elizabeth Rogers may have been one of his pupils. His legacy is modest, but it illustrates the practice of English keyboard music in the seventeenth century.