Orlando Gibbons

Orlando Gibbons was one of the most important composers active in England during the early 17th century. Descended from a family of musicians, he spent the last few years of his life as organist at Westminster Abbey. In 1613 he published a selection of fine keyboard music in the volume called Parthenia. In addition to his own pieces he also added some by those other emblematic figures of the time, William Byrd and John Bull. In his brief life, he was not able to compose as much music as his more famous contemporaries, but he has since through his music attained the status of a "musicians’ musician"; one whose music far transcends that of most composers of the time.

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.

There's no more agreeable, melodious, or concordant sound on earth than that of a consort of viols, and Orlando Gibbons' music for these instruments is among the finest ever written. Besides its artful scoring and clever melodic invention, the essence of the music lies in its harmony, which brings sensuousness and emotional expression to a rare peak of refinement.

This disc takes us on a whistle-stop tour of English keyboard music in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The fantasy, pavan and galliard were among the most popular forms of their day. The latter two dance movements were often paired together, and sometimes linked thematically. The pavan, wrote Thomas Morley, was ‘a kind of staide musicke, ordained for grave dauncing’, while the briefer galliard serviced ‘a lighter and more stirring kinde of dauncing’. The most attractive examples here are Bull’s charming John Lumley’s Pavan and Galliard and Byrd’s Pavan ‘Ph. Tregian’ & Galliard, its regal pavan among the disc’s high spots.

This sensational recital—featuring some of the greatest keyboard music to emerge from these islands—is the perfect vehicle for Mahan Esfahani’s abundant talents. His accompanying booklet notes are an added bonus, guaranteed to inform, illuminate and provoke by turns.

Melancholy Grace is a poetic collection of keyboard music from the 16th and 17th centuries by composers from Italy, the Netherlands, England and Germany, including Frescobaldi, Luigi Rossi, Picchi, Luzzaschi, Sweelinck, Dowland, Bull and Gibbons. The French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau has conceived the album as a sombre, but eloquent dialogue between two contrasting voices: melancholy conveyed through chromaticism and melancholy conveyed through the musical expression of tears and weeping. Each voice finds expression through a different instrument: a 16th century Italian virginal (a compact harpsichord) for the ‘tears’ and a modern replica of an 18th century harpsichord for the ‘chromatic’ pieces.

The Sicilian nobleman Sigismondo d'India was roughly contemporary with Monteverdi (both began their careers around 1600); the musical ferment of that period led, in d'India's case, to a very heady brew. His madrigals–duets, solos and five-voice works–are like inebriated Monteverdi: d'India set the Italian poetic texts (usually dealing with a lover's pain) with even less regard for academic counterpoint and even more surprising twists of harmony than did his more-famous colleague, yet the music never veers into the disorienting, seemingly willful weirdness of Gesualdo.

Royal Rhymes and Rounds is the King's Singers' contribution to the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne in 2012. There are ballads, part songs, madrigals, rounds, and anthems written during the reigns of (and some also in honor of) Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Victoria, and Elizabeth II. The music from the times of Henry and Elizabeth I is especially strong since it was the era of a flowering of English song, which then lay relatively dormant for several centuries. The composers include such luminaries as William Cornysh, Orlando Gibbons, John Dowland, and Thomas Weelkes, as well as Henry himself, whose rousing ballad Pastime with good companie opens the album. It's in this transparent repertoire that the group sounds its absolute best. The singers' immaculate intonation, focused tone quality, and sensitive musicianship are remarkable.