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The Keyboard Music of Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1962

Gerald Hendrie
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Extract

Orlando Gibbons was undoubtedly one of the greatest of English composers. Indeed, his music ranks among the finest written by any European composer of the day. His musical gifts received early recognition, and in 1605, at the age of twenty-one, he was appointed an organist of the Chapel Royal. John Bull and Edmund Hooper were among his colleagues. Doubtless, much of the organ music was written at this time, but since it is all stylistically mature it is impossible to date it accurately. However, some of the best keyboard music was included in Parthenia, and this dates from 1612–13. It is likely that much of the dance music—both for keyboard and for strings—was written after his appointment in 1619 as a musician of the Privy Chamber, for dancing was much in vogue at court and dance-music was enjoyed also in its own right. In 1623 Gibbons was appointed organist of Westminster Abbey, and two years later he died, at Canterbury.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 89 , 1962 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1962

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Professor Thurston Dart for playing the musical examples.

References

1 British Museum, Royal Music Library MS 23.I.4.Google Scholar

2 British Museum, Add MS 36661.Google Scholar

3 The Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal, f. 33, f. 34, f. 36, f. 37; Royal College of Music MS 2187; British Museum Add. MS 33965, f. 42; The Westminster Abbey bill, Muniment no. 53317.Google Scholar

4 Glyn, M., About Elizabethan Music and its Composers, London, 1924, p. 42.Google Scholar

5 Fellowes, E. H., Orlando Gibbons and his Family, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1951.Google Scholar

6 Strunk, O., Source Readings in Music History, New York, 1950, p. 29.Google Scholar

7 Vol. XI, Summer-Fall 1958, nos. 2–3.Google Scholar