The 400th anniversary of the death ofOrlando Gibbonshas so far been one of the less prominently marked of this year’s significant musical dates. Gibbons, who was born in Oxford in 1583, was one of the last significant English madrigalists, and is often viewed as a transitional figure between Renaissance music and the baroque, though historically he has been overshadowed by the more prolificWilliam Byrd, with whom he may have studied.
As well as vocal works, Gibbons wrote a wealth of string chamber music, and Fretwork’s selection includes Fantasias in two, three, four, five and six parts, as well as a Pavan and Galliard for six viols. Placed at the centre of the sequence isNico Muhly’sMy Days,originally commissioned for Fretwork and the Hilliard Ensemble; it’s a setting for four male voices and viols of Psalm 39, with an extract from a report on the autopsy that was performed on Gibbons; Muhly describes the result as “a ritualised memory piece about Orlando Gibbons”.
Muhly’s composition, with its urgent string figures, contrasts beautifully with the flowing imitations of Gibbons’ fantasias, around it. Its vocal lines are built out of a single falling melodic figure, with the quartet of counter tenor, two tenors and baritone moving in luminous rhythmic unison through the psalm, before the autopsy is delivered as a series of Gibbons-like responses, until a final section with the voices surrounded by plucked strings before settling on the words “my days”, with the viols fluttering around them. It sets off the string pieces around it, perfectly.
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