Orlando Gibbons
Orlando Gibbons wrote English madrigals, verse anthems, full anthems and keyboard music at the hinge of Renaissance and Baroque practice: lucid polyphony, rhetorical force without bombast, and lines that lodge in the ear like The Silver Swan.
The First Set of Madrigals and Motets still travels as consort song: What Is Our Life?, Ah Dear Heart, Fair Is the Rose, Trust Not Too Much, Fair Youth, and the evergreen Silver Swan, their close voicing made for voices and viols. Sacred works keep English texts to the fore. The eight-part O clap your hands together opens with real splendour; verse anthems such as This is the record of John give the solo line technical bite and plain speech rather than display. Two Evensong settings balance full and verse writing. Keyboard fantasias treat several subjects in dense three- and four-part counterpoint; pavans and galliards grow simple ideas at length. Hymn tunes and anthems keep his voice inside living liturgy. The sound is clean, purposeful and still immediate.
Compositions by Orlando Gibbons appear on
The Emerald Leopard
Josie and the Emeralds pair acclaimed early-music soprano Josie Ryan with some of Australia’s finest viol players, the Emerald City Viols. Founded in 2011, the group is known for sophisticated performances and inventive programmes of Renaissance and contemporary works, including compositions and arrangements by director Brooke Green.