Orlando Gibbons

English musician and composer

• Born: 1583
• Birthplace: Oxford, England
• Died: June 5, 1625
• Place of death: Canterbury, Kent, England

An honored organist of the Chapel Royal and personal musician to Prince Charles, Gibbons helped perfect and significantly expanded the musical genres of the verse anthem, keyboard music for the virginal, consort music for viols, and English madrigals.

Early Life

Although he was born in Oxford, England, Orlando Gibbons’s family moved to Cambridge when he was very young. Several members of his family were musicians, including his father, William, who performed at civic events in his office as a wait, or town musician, for Cambridge. Orlando’s brother Edward, the eldest of Orlando’s ten siblings, earned academic degrees in music at both Cambridge and Oxford and was appointed as master of the choristers at King’s College, Cambridge. Orlando was listed as a member of this choir from 1596 until 1599.

In 1598, Orlando, under an arrangement in which his fees were waived or reduced in exchange for some labor, matriculated at King’s College, where he continued to serve as a chorister. In 1603, he became a musician in the Chapel Royal, an affiliation he maintained for the rest of his life, serving under James I (1566-1625) for a period closely matching that monarch’s reign. He was officially appointed in 1605, Soon after this appointment, Gibbons married Elizabeth Patten; they had seven children.

Life’s Work

In England during the time of Gibbons, the Renaissance practice of performing consort music, music written for groups of similar instruments, was still very popular, especially music written for the viol (a fretted, softer relative of the modern violin). Gibbons contributed a great deal to the consort music repertoire and added organ accompaniments. At some point within the years 1606-1610, Gibbons became the first English composer to have his music printed from engraved plates, using a technology that had been developed in continental Europe during the previous two decades. His work Fantasies of Three Parts (1621) was dedicated to Edmund Wray, then groom of the privy chamber, although he was exiled from the court the following year. Another friend and patron was Sir Christopher Hatton, to whom he dedicated The First Set of Madrigals and Mottets (1612), a collection of songs that included “The Silver Swan,” one of Gibbon’s most famous compositions.

An important characteristic of Gibbon’s style as a secular composer is the ability of many of his melodies to serve either as instrumental or vocal parts. This flexibility would have been very useful in adapting his music to changing performance conditions and the contingencies of musician availability. In Gibbons’s compositional style, coming at a period of transition between the Renaissance and Baroque musical periods, characteristic elements of both the Renaissance (use of viol consorts, conservative control of dissonance, flowing polyphony) and Baroque (the theme and variations structure favored in English virginal music, harmonic clarity) can be heard.

Gibbons was honored by having his works included in Parthenia (c. 1612), the first printed collection of works for the virginal, a small harpsichord especially favored in England. The other two contributors were much older and more famous; William Byrd, the late Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, and Dr. John Bull, an organist of the Chapel Royal. The pieces were written to honor the marriage of Princess Elizabeth Stuart and Frederick V , elector of the Palatinate.

Gibbons’s great skill as an organist was eventually recognized, and in 1615, he was first listed as an organist in the Chapel Royal. In addition to his continued service in the Chapel Royal, Gibbons accepted appointments with Westminster Abbey, and he was able to hold these joint positions, because many of the duties and musical responsibilities of each position were rotated among the same group of musicians. As a member of the Chapel Royal, he accompanied the king on his visit to Scotland in 1617, for which he composed the anthem “Great King of Gods” and a secular song, “Do not repine, fair sun.”

Gibbons wrote a great deal of sacred music, although his major polyphonic works were not published until after his death. Unlike his older predecessors, who had participated in the musical transition from Catholic to Anglican services, Gibbons’s own development as a composer of sacred music was completely within the liturgy of the Church of England. He is especially known for his pieces in the verse anthem genre, which contrasts the full chorus with solo passages, often with instrumental accompaniment by a consort of viols or an organ. In addition to the anthems, he composed two services, the Anglican equivalent of the great masses of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525-1594). Because of this, he was sometimes referred to as the English Palestrina, and his polyphonic style for these large works evoked the Renaissance techniques, but with more emphasis on the syllables of the text. His choruses sometimes extended to as many as eight voices, as in his well-known piece “O clap your hands.”

Although he was certainly recognized by King James I, who had awarded him two grants in 1615, it was the young Prince Charles, later King Charles I , who, after becoming the prince of Wales, hired Gibbons as one of his personal staff of musicians in 1617. Two years later, Gibbons was given an additional appointment to serve as King James’s virginalist. In 1623, Gibbons was given yet another set of musical duties, when he and Thomas Day, a colleague who served with him in Prince Charles’s household as well as the Chapel Royal, were given shared appointments as organists and masters of the choristers at Westminster Abbey.

In 1625, James I died, and the new King Charles prepared to meet his bride, Henrietta Maria of France, in Canterbury. Gibbons was to attend, but on May 31, he suddenly fell ill and went into a coma, dying just a few days later. His life was cut short when he was at the peak of his musical powers, just as his major patron had risen to supreme power in England.

Significance

Gibbons made lasting contributions to the repertoire of several distinctively English genres, including consort songs, keyboard music for the virginal, and verse anthems. His serious, polyphonic compositions represented a continuation of the major techniques and motifs of Renaissance music, of which he was undisputedly a master. At the same time, Gibbons’s music was undeniably modern and helped to shape the development of early Baroque compositions in England: For all his facility with Renaissance high seriousness, Gibbons eschewed Renaissance chromatic harmonies and decorative tropes in favor of periodic harmony and modern rhythmic figures. He influenced later English composers, including Henry Purcell (1659-1695). His sacred music remained in use within the Anglican church, and was eventually adopted by other denominations.

Bibliography

Ashbee, Andrew, and Peter Holman, eds. John Jenkins and His Time: Studies in English Consort Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Essays by various experts in English consort music. John Jenkins (1592-1678), a composer of instrumental music, was an important contemporary of Gibbons, who is also given extensive coverage in this work, including detailed discussion of patronage, the use of instruments (viols, lutes, organ, etc.); and musical manuscripts.

Fellowes, Edmund H. Orlando Gibbons and His Family: The Last of the Tudor School of Musicians. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1970. First published in 1925 as Orlando Gibbons: A Short Account of His Life and Work. Biographical information on Gibbons, with separate chapters on his church, secular vocal, and instrumental music. Illustrated. Includes appendices and genealogical chart of the Gibbons family.

Harley, John. Orlando Gibbons and the Gibbons Family of Musicians. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1999. Detailed accounts, including many musical examples with analysis and commentary. An entire chapter on Christopher Gibbons. Appendixes, extensive musical examples, illustrations, list of works, historical documents, bibliography.

Morehen, John, ed. English Choral Practice, 1400-1650. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Nine essays focus on performance practice (including pitch), the evolution of the church choir, musical training, pronunciation, and research of manuscripts. Twelve references to Gibbons.

Silbiger, Alexander. Keyboard Music Before 1700. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. After a general article on the evolution of of European keyboard music, chapters by specialists focus on composers and regional developments, including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, as well as England, with several references specifically to Gibbons. This edition adds a chapter on performance practice by Silbiger, updated bibliographies and new information. Places Gibbons’s keyboard music in an international context.