GG:Orlando G.

[Alun Severn <alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk>]

Mary Jo said:

>I don't think GG was being at all tongue-in-cheek by stating that
>Orlando Gibbons was his favorite composer. Listen to the Allemande
>Italian Ground [available on Images, and the Consort of Musicke CD]--
[...]

I also saw what looked like a superb Gibbons today, called, I think,
ANTHEMS & CRIES OF LONDON, by the UK early music consort FRETWORK. I can't
remember the catalog details, I'm afraid and nor did I buy it, but I can
check them out if anyone is interested. Anyhow, the important thing is
this: the sleevenotes suggest that Gibbons had little patience with setting
the usual, conventional kind of words to music--poor verse, hackneyed love
songs--and preferred to compose instrumental music in which he was free to
simply pursue the sound and structure. For this reason, the notes suggest
that it is his non-Church music which is most notable. The disc includes
CRIES OF LONDON--apparently a setting to music of a cacaphony of London
streetsellers' cries. While I don't think Gibbons was the only one to do
this, it struck me as exactly the kind of oddity that GG would admire and
made me think of some of his own experimental radio compositions.

I wonder what others think?

- best,    Alun

26/8/96
9:22 pm

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