Musician/Organist ORLANDO GIBBONS Orlando Gibbon was one of the m

Orlando Gibbon was one of the most distinguished musicians of the Elizabethan era, a contemporary of Shakespeare with a reputation as an organist. Gibbons was born in 1583 to a family of yeoman stock, and his father was a musician. Orlando became one of the choristers at King's College in 1596. Because of his ability as an organist, he was given an appointment in 1604 to the chapel Royal, and this was seen as a remarkable achievement for one so young. He would keep this position until the end of his life and would be recognized as one of the greatest organists in all of England (Composers of Yesterday, 167).

Gibbons achieved a reputation as a remarkable composer in the Tudor period, the period of James I after the reign of Elizabeth ended. He learned what he knew first from his father and then from his training at Cambridge in King's College. He received his baccalaureate from Oxford in 1606. That same year he marred Elizabeth Patten, who was the daughter of the Keeper of the King's Closet. Gibbons then began composing sometime between 1605 and 1612 with the publication of a set of 9 fantasias for three viols. The fantasia in Gibbons' hands was written in a fugal style that would anticipate later methods of fugue-writing. Gibbons made the fantasia a significant instrumental form in English music. These fantasias also constitute the first important works for stringed instruments produced by an

English composer. Ernest Walker states that they are distinguishe

Related Essays

Musical Changes During the Renaissance .... Orlando di Lasso created some 2,000 works, in all forms: Italian madrigals .... He began his career as a church musician and later became an organist and choir .... (1574 6 )

Music of the Renaissance .... Orlando di Lasso created some 2,000 works, in all forms: Italian madrigals .... He began his career as a church musician and later became an organist and choir .... (1623 6 )

Dickinson has written of the best of these madrigals, "The Silver Swan" shows Gibbons' melodic sense as well as the tart harmony of the augmented fifth. . . The gnomic manner persist through the book. A setting of Raleigh's "What Is Our Life?" is the most elaborate essay in this manner, with the stage metaphors closely matched by the music. Elsewhere the satirical vein fetters the composer and he has to resort to formal sequences and imitations. As a set, these madrigals preserve a certain strain of ethical reflection in developed counterpoint ("Gibbons," 148). Gibbons received large grants in 1611 and 1615 from the crown as marks of royal favor, and in 1619 he was appointed chamber musician to the King. In 1623 he was made organist of Westminster Abbey, and in 1622 he obtained a doctorate from Oxford. Gibbons officiated at the funeral of James I in 1625. Later that same year, Gibbons was invited by Charles I to Canterbury for festivities honoring the arrival of French princess Henrietta Maria, to be the king's bride. However, Gibbons suffered an apoplectic stroke on that occasion and died June 5, 1625. He was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. Since he was buried only one day later, a rumor started that he had been bur

Category: Arts - M