Thomas Arne

Thomas Augustine Arne was an English composer of the late Baroque and early Classical periods and a leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at Drury Lane and Covent Garden in London. Born in Covent Garden, he wrote many operatic entertainments for the London theatres and pleasure gardens as well as concertos, sinfonias and sonatas. His song Rule, Britannia! was first heard in the Masque of Alfred at Cliveden, the country house of Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1740. His Artaxerxes (1762) was one of the most successful English operas of the century and the only known attempt at an Italianate opera seria in English, with recitative in place of spoken dialogue.