First published in 1999, this volume is the first full-length study
to deal with the life and music of Orlando Gibbons since E.H.
Fellowes's short book, originally published in 1923. John Harley
investigates in detail the family and musical background from which
Orlando Gibbons emerged, and gives a fascinating account of the
activities of his father, William Gibbons, as a wait in Oxford and
Cambridge. He traces, too, the activities of Orlando's brothers -
Edward, who was the master of the choristers at King's College,
Cambridge and later at Exeter Cathedral; Ferdinando, who may have
taken over from his father as head of the Cambridge waits, and who
became a wait in Lincoln; and Ellis, who contributed two madrigals
to Thomas Morley's collection of 1601, The Triumphs of Oriana.
Attention naturally focuses principally on Orlando Gibbons. A full
record is given of his remarkably youthful appointment as an
organist of the Chapel Royal (he was probably less than twenty at
the time) and of his life at court. His additional appointments as
one of Prince Charles's musicians and as organist of Westminster
Abbey are also described, as is his sudden and premature death in
his early forties. Gibbons's music is carefully examined in a
series of chapters dealing with his pieces for keyboard and for
viols, his songs, his full and verse anthems, and his works for the
Anglican liturgy. His development as a composer within these genres
is followed, and the character of particular pieces is considered.
John Harley concludes that whereas, at one time, Gibbons 'tended to
be admired as a successor to Tallis and Byrd, working in a style
not essentially different from theirs', it is now 'easier to view
him as a pioneer, whose work was cut short by his untimely death'.
Orlando Gibbons's son Christopher was only a child when his father
died, but he became one of the foremost composers and keyboard
players of his generation, writing and performing chamber works and
music for the stage during the Commonwealth. Following the
Restoration of King Charles II, Christopher Gibbons gained his
father's former posts at the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey,
for which establishments he wrote a number of anthems. His
importance is recognized by the inclusion of a long chapter on his
life and works.
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