I Served The King of England

Orlando Gibbons belongs to the generation of English composers which followed that of William Byrd, 40 years his senior, who died in 1623. He was a chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, where his elder brother was Master of the Choristers, and later became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, which he served as an organist and to which he later added the position of organist at Westminster Abbey. He wrote music for the Church of England, madrigals, consort music and keyboard works.

Lutenist, singer and composer Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, presided for a short while over one of the most cultivated European courts. Sirinu, with imaginative deployment of instrumental colour, performs the songs, consort music and arrangements attributed to Henry Tudor, including the well-known ‘Pastyme with good companye’. A fascinating disc.