Orlando Gibbons (1583, Oxford – 1625, Canterbury)
An innovator of Anglican church music, Orlando Gibbons was a leading English choral composer of the late 16th and early 17th century. He served as organist at the Royal Chapel and at Westminster Abbey, and was a private musician at the court of Prince Charles. Gibbons and his contemporaries pioneered new methods in consort music, resulting in the early Baroque period's tremendous output of chamber pieces (which has only been surpassed in volume by the Viennese classical period of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven). Gibbons was even more influential in sacred choral music, especially the verse anthem (an anthem which alternates full choral sections with solo vocal and organ accompaniment).
Selected works:
Madrigal: The Silver Swan
Polyphonic anthems: O Clap Your Hands; Hosanna to the Son of David; Almighty and Everlasting God; O Lord, in Thy Wrath Rebuke Me Not; Out of the Deep Have I Called Unto Thee, O Lord
Verse anthems: Great Lord of Lords; See, See The Word Incarnate; O God, The King of Glory; This Is the Record of John; Almighty God, Who by Thy Son; If Ye Be Risen Again With Christ