In the domain of Sacred Music Orlando Gibbons certainly holds the foremost place amongst the English composers of the contrapuntal school. No name is better known in our Cathedrals. In great gatherings of Cathedral Choirs in my young days (alas! we do not now have such gatherings to any great extent) Gibbons' splendid Service in F was always an item to which we looked forward. And he has left us almost as great a collection of anthems as Purcell did in later years. Many of them were composed for special occasions. One was a wedding Anthem "for my Lord Somerset"; another "made for the King's being in Scotland" (this was, of course, James I, and it was from this Anthem I extracted the splendid concluding "Amen" which was sung at the Coronations of King Edward VII and King George V, and which is now the recognized "Abbey Amen").
The Anthem "This is the record of John" has a string accompaniment for Viols; this was "made for Laud, President of St John's, Oxford, for St John Baptist's Day." Another "Behold thou hast made my days" was composed at the entreaty of Dr Maxey, Dean of Windsor, "the same day se'night before his death."
Mention must also be made of "O clap your hands," which has always had a suspicion attached to it of having played the part of Dr Heyther's Doctor's Exercise. This suspicion is deepened by the fact that Dr Cummings possessed a MS. of it with the following inscription upon it: "Dr Heyther's Commencement Song Composed by Dr Orlando Gibbons". They both took their degrees at Oxford on the same occasion viz: the foundation of the Camden History Professorship. Heyther was a Lay Vicar of Westminster, and it was he who founded the Oxford Music Lecture, now represented by the Professorship. It was originally worth £3 a year. The degrees were conferred on the two friends of Camden at his special request.
Gibbons was also a contributor to Wither's Hymns and Songs of the Church. Withers himself pays him the following tribute: "He hath chosen to make his music agreeable to the matter, and what the common apprehension can best admit, rather than to the curious fancies of the time; which path both of us could more easily have trodden."
Gibbons appears to have had a sense of humour, judging from a letter which we found in the Westminster Abbey Muniment Room some years ago. I believe this is the only letter of Gibbons' that is known. It is addressed to the Treasurer of the Abbey, asking that the organ-tuner, one Burrard, might be paid; it runs as follows:
Mr. Ireland: I know this bill to be very resonable for I have alredy cut him off ten shillings therfore I pray despathe him, for he hath delt honestly wth ye church soe shall I rest yr servant,
Orlando Gibbons.
The whole bill was very small, and by "cutting him off ten shillings" I think old Orlando was rather hard!
We get a glimpse of Orlando Gibbons' organ-playing in the Abbey from the Life of Archbishop Williams, sometime Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. The French Ambassadors who came over to arrange the marriage of the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I) with Henrietta Maria were entertained at supper in the Jerusalem Chamber. But before the Supper we are told "The Embassadors, with the Nobles and Gentlemen in their Company, were brought in at the North Gate of the Abbey, which was stuck with Flambeaux everywhere 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 take their seats there for a while. At their entrance the organ was touched by the best Finger of that age, Mr Orlando Gibbons. The Lord Embassadors and their Great Train took up all the stalls where they continued about half-an-hour, while the Quiremen, vested in their Rich Copes, sang three several Anthems with most exquisite voices before them."