Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) Keyboard Music
Christopher Hogwood
Cabinet Organ Bernflrd Smith, 1643 (Side 1: 1, 2, 8)
Italian Spinet “Queen Elizabeth’s Virginals”, circa 1590 (Side 1: 3-7)
Harpsichord “Jan Ruckers, 1634″ (Side 2)
Cabinet Organ by courtesy of Noel Mander, London.
Italian Spinet & Harpsichord by courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Record Producer: Peter Wadland
Executive Producer: Raymond Ware
Sound Enginee: Iain Churches
Cover: Nicholas Hilliard: Elizabeth, later Queen of Bohemia (Victoria & Albert Museüm,London)
Released 1975 by l’Oiseau-Lyre DSLO 515, part of the Decca Record Company

Side 1 (27’45”)
00:00 1. Fantasia (10) (2’20”) organ
02:20 2a A Fancy (3) (5’10”) organ
03:26 2b Fantasia (8) organ
07:31 3. The Queen’s Command (28) (1’25”) spinet
09:01 4a Pavan (17) (4’50”) spinet
11:51 4b Galliard (23) spinet
13:53 5. Ground (26) (2’30”) spinet
16:26 6a Alman [33] (2’45”) spinet
17:32 6b Coranto (40) spinet
19:19. The Italian Ground (27)(1’50”) spinet
21:17 8a Verse (4) (6” 20″) organ
22:12 8b Fantasia of four parts (12) organ

Side 2 (24’15”)
27:30 1. Prelude (1) (1’35”) harpsichord
29:14 2a Pavan: Lord Salisbury [18] (6’00”) harpsichord
32:41 2b Galliard (19) harpsichord
35:07 3a Alman: The King’s Jewel (36) (3’30”) harpsichord
37:16 3b Alman (37) harpsichord
38:44. Pavan (16) (5’30”) harpsichord
44:10 5a Galliard [21] (4’40”) harpsichord
46:24 5b Galliard (22) harpsichord
49:10 6a Lincoln’s Inn Masque (44) (2’35”) harpsichord
50:21 6b The Queen’s Command (28) harpsichord

Numbering taken from .Musica Britannica, XX

ORLANDO GIBBONS:
KEYBOARD MUSIC
In 1623 a deputation from France arrived in
London to make the preliminary arrangements
for the betrothal of Prince Charles –
later to become CharIes I – and Henrietta
Maria. As part of the entertainment prescribed
for the ambassadors by King James,
they were taken to Westminster Abbey,
“which was stuck with Flambeaux everywhere,
both within and without the Quire,
that strangers might cast their eyes upon the
stateliness of the Church. At the Door of the
Quire the Lord Keeper besought their Lordships
to go in, and to take their seats there for
a while, promising in the word of aBishop
that nothing of ill Rellish should be offered
before them; wh ich they accepted; and at their
Entrance the Organ was touch’d by the best
Finger of that Age, Mr. Orlando Gibbons.
While a Verse was plaid. the Lord Keeper presented
the Embasadors, and the rest of the
Noblest Quality of their Nation, with our
Liturgy, as it spake to them in their own Language”.
(Described by John Hacket in Scrinia
reserata).
Gibbons had only recently been appointed
to the post at Westminster, although as the
most brilliant musician of his generation, he
had been in royal service ever since he was 21,
first as organist of the Chapel Royal,. and
since 1619 as “one of his Maties Musicians for
the virginalls to attend in his highnes privie
Chamber”. Even earlier than this his position
as ‘the best Finger of that Age’ had been confirmed
by the indusion of six of his pieces in
Partheni.a or the Maydenhead of the first
musicke that euer was printed for the
Virginal/es Composed by three famous
Masters Willam Byrd, Dr. lohn Bull &
Orlando Gibbons.
This exquisite volume was produced to celebrate
the betrothal in 1612 of Frederick V,
Elector Palatine, and King James’s daughter
Elizabeth, both of them only sixteen. She was
later known as the Winter Queen’ and her
portrait, painted by Nicholas Hilliard, is
reproduced on the cover of this record; The
Queen ‘5 Command, the only piece in
Parthenia to be named after her, is reproduced
on the front of this booklet. For Gibbons himself
the volume was a particular triumph,
since Byrd was 68 and Bull was nearly fifty,
while he hirnself was only in his twenties.
Thurston Dart argued that he mayaIso have
been the general editor of the whole collection,
and his praises are sung (albeit inelegantly)
in a commendatory poem at the beginning
of the volume: “Yet this ORLANDO
paralleIs di Lasso: whose tripIe praise would
tire a very Tasso”.
In addition to his Madrigals and Mottets of
5 parts, printed in 1612, Gibbons had a selection
of Fantasias of Three Parts published
later in his career (probably after 1620) –
another rare distinction at a time when
printed chamber music was even more of a
novelty than printed keyboard music in
England.
Gibbons officiated at the funeral of James I
in May 1625, when the records of the Chapel
Royal show that he was amongst the gentlemen
allowed “nine yards apeece of blackes for
themselves, and two yards apeece for their
servants”. But scarcely was the Court out of
mourning and on its way towards Dover to
welcome Queen Henrietta Maria than
Gibbons was suddenly taken iIl in Canterbury
and died on Whit Sunday, June 5th. A few
days later, John ChamberIain wrote to Sir
Dudley Carleton about the threat of the
plague: “that weh makes us the more afraid is
that the sickness increaseth so fast …

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