Fantasies by Orlando Gibbons

Foreword

Orlando Gibbons (baptized December 25, 1583 – June 5, 1625) was a virginalist and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods.

His life

Gibbons was born in 1583 (probably in December) and baptized on Christmas Day in Oxford, where his father William Gibbons worked as a waiter. Between 1596 and 1598 he sang in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, where his brother Edward Gibbons (1568-1650), the eldest of William Gibbons’ four sons, conducted the choir. The second brother Ellis Gibbons (1573-1603) was also a promising composer, but died young. Orlando began studying at the university in 1598 and obtained a Bachelor of Music in 1606. In the same year he married Elizabeth Patten, daughter of a yeoman of the vestry, and they had seven children (Gibbons himself was the seventh of ten children).

King James I appointed him a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, where he worked as organist from around 1615 until his death. In 1623 he became principal organist of the Chapel Royal, with Thomas Tomkins as junior organist. He also worked as organist in the Privy Chamber of Prince Charles’s court (later King Charles I) and also in Westminster Abbey.

He died of a stroke in Canterbury at the age of 41 and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. His death came as a shock to his peers and led to a post-mortem, although the cause of death attracted less attention than the haste with which he was buried and the fact that his body was not returned to London. His wife, Elizabeth, died just over a year later in her mid-30s, leaving Orlando’s eldest brother, Edward, to look after the orphaned siblings. Of these children, only the eldest son, Christopher Gibbons, was to become a musician.

His work

Gibbons, one of the most versatile English composers of his time, wrote a large number of works for keyboard instruments, around thirty fantasias for viols, a series of madrigals (the best known being ‘The Silver Swan’) and many popular verse anthems, all for English texts. Perhaps his best-known verse anthem is “This Is the Record of John”, which sets an Advent text for solo countertenor or tenor, alternating with full choir.

He also produced two major settings of Evensong, the Short Service and the Second Service, an extended composition combining verse and whole sections. Gibbons’ full anthems include the expressive ‘O Lord, in thy wrath’ and the Ascension hymn ‘O clap thy hands together’ for eight voices. He contributed six pieces to the first printed collection of keyboard music in England, Parthenia (to which he was by far the youngest of the three contributors), which was published around 1611. Gibbons’ surviving keyboard edition comprises about 45 pieces.

Polyphonic fantasy and dance forms are the best represented genres. Gibbons’ writing features a command for three- and four-part counterpoint. Most fantasias are complex, multi-part pieces that treat several themes imitatively. Gibbons’ approach to melody, both in his fantasies and in his dances, is characterized by a comprehensive development of simple musical ideas, such as in Pavane in D minor and ‘Lord Salisbury’s Pavan and Galliard’.

Why should the works of Orlando Gibbons be performed on the nyckelharpa?

In his book “Syntagma Musicum, Tomus Secundus”, Michael Praetorius wrote about an English instrument with sympathetic strings, the viola bastarda:

“Now something else strange has been discovered in England / that underneath the right common six sabres / there are still eight other stems and twisted brass sabres / on a brass bridge (like those used on the Pandorren) / which must be tuned in with the tops equally and quite purely. If now the uppermost of these strings is stirred with the finger or bow / then the lowest brass or steel strings resonate per consensus at the same time with trembling and tremolo, also / that the sweetness of the harmony is thereby, as it were, increased and extended.”

In recent years we have noticed a great interest in early music performances by nyckelharpa players! Our beloved instrument, not only as a more or less correct historical reconstruction, e.g. the so-called “Siena keyed vielle” or the “Moraharpa”, but also in its modern 4-row “continental” version, and its sound fits perfectly with music from the late Middle Ages to the Baroque.
Gibbons’ consort works have an exciting sound when played by two or more Nyckelharpor.

Some time ago, we started arranging this music for our students. We have spent a long time rehearsing and performing the fantasies, and now we have decided to spread the word and share our work in the form of this publication.

This edition of the Fantasias is specially designed for 4-row nyckelharpa, tuned in fifths. It should be noted that in almost all cases the upper voices are also suitable for 3-row instruments in the traditional and fifth tuning.

One problem that arises when arranging music for different instruments of the nyckelharpa family is the clefs used in the scores. In this case, it is a relatively new debate that has gone largely unnoticed in the Scandinavian milieu due to the greater prevalence of four-key row instruments on the continent.

The Swedish “traditional” instrument with its tuning, the three rows of keys and the use of the fourth string as a drone, requires no notes below the third empty string (G). For this reason, Swedish repertoire is normally notated in treble clef.
The case of the four-row nyckelharpa is clearly different. How do you write down the notes that are possible with the keys on the fourth string? In this case, we have decided to use three different notations: Treble clef (G clef), treble clef one octave lower (G clef) and bass clef (F clef).

Have fun!

Caterina Other & Marco Ambrosini
September 2017