Orlando Gibbons belongs to the generation of English composers
that followed that of William Byrd, forty years his senior, who
had died in 1623. He was a chorister at King's College, Cambridge,
where his elder brother was Master of the Choristers, and later
became a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, which he served as an
organist and to which he later added the position of organist
at Westminster Abbey. He wrote music for the Church of England,
madrigals, consort music and keyboard works.
Gibbons wrote some forty anthems. Of these the verse anthem This is the record of John is one of the best known. The verse anthem, a peculiarly Anglican form of church music, contrasts a solo voice with passages for full choir. The eight-voice full anthem O clap your hands is a fine example of another form of anthem, without the use of solo voices. Other full anthems include Hosanna to the son of David and Lift up your heads, while the Christmas anthem Behold, I bring you glad tidings, with Glorious and powerful God and Sing unto the Lord, o ye saints, are fine examples of the verse anthem.
The most famous of all the madrigals Gibbons wrote is The Silver Swanne, included in the only collection published by the composer, The First Set of Madrigals and Mottets, apt for Viols and Voyces, which appeared, advertised as newly composed, in 1612. Some of these have more of the form of consort songs, for solo voice and instrumental accompaniment, and could be performed in this way, rather than with each part sung. Gibbons's consort songs include a remarkable concoction, The Cryes of London, for five voices and five viols, a composition that makes use of the street cries of hawkers and vendors in London in his time.
Instrumental Music
Gibbons wrote a number of pieces for onsorts of viols (bowed string instruments) the playing of which was socially acceptable. These include contrapuntal Fantasias, dance movements and examples of the traditional English instrumental form, the In nomine, a composition based on a fragment of a setting of the Benedictus in a Mass by the English composer John Taverner.
Keyboard Music
Gibbons continued the English tradition of keyboard music exemplified in the work of William Byrd, John Bull and others. Work by all three was published in 1613 under the title Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the First Musicke that ever was printed for the Virginals. Gibbons contributed a number of fantasias, one of them for double organ, and various airs and dance movements, including Lord Salisbury's Pavan and Galliard.
