Contributions
Baptised in Oxford late in 1583, a chorister and then student at King's College, Cambridge, Gibbons joined the Chapel Royal around 1605 as Gentleman and organist, and in 1623 became organist of Westminster Abbey — the most prestigious post in the realm. He stands at the summit of two genres. At the keyboard, a virtuoso praised in his own time, he contributed six pieces to the collection Parthenia (1612-1613), the first printed English keyboard music, and left some forty virginal pieces of consummate craft. In church, he brought the verse anthem — a dialogue of soloists, choir and organ — to perfection: "This is the record of John" and "O clap your hands" (his Oxford doctoral exercise, 1622) rank among the absolute masterpieces of the Anglican repertory. His only secular collection, First Set of Madrigals and Motets (1612), contains "The Silver Swan," a madrigal of legendary purity. To these are added many viol fantasias that enrich the English consort.
Significance
Gibbons is the last great representative of the golden age of English polyphony, the one who closes in full light the line opened by Taverner and carried on by Byrd. His place is twofold and distinguished. He is, with Byrd and Bull, one of the masters of the English virginal school, that learned and inventive keyboard music which is one of England's great contributions to European music. And he is the undisputed master of the verse anthem, a typically English form in which organ and soloists answer the choir, which would become the heart of Anglican church music: his anthems set a model the whole Restoration would carry on. His music unites a flawless contrapuntal rigour with an inner gravity and a clarity of line that is wholly English; "The Silver Swan" says in a few bars this art of expressive concision. Dead at forty-one, at the height of his career and gift, Gibbons left a body of work which, but for the suddenness of his passing, would surely have marked the century even more. He remains one of the very great names of English music.
Influence
His verse anthems set the model of Anglican church music carried on throughout the Restoration; his writing for keyboard and viols fed the next generation, beginning with his own son Christopher Gibbons, himself a noted organist and composer. He stands in the heritage of William Byrd and the English virginal school, whose keyboard art he extended, while the tradition of the Chapel Royal and the great Tudor polyphonic repertory form the bedrock of his sacred writing.
Anecdote
In June 1625 Gibbons travelled with the Chapel Royal to Canterbury to await the arrival of Henrietta Maria of France, the new queen of Charles I. Struck by apoplexy, he collapsed and died within a day; amid fears of plague, a post-mortem was carried out before he was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. A monument surmounted by his bust, the work of the sculptor Nicholas Stone, preserves there the memory of the most brilliant organist of his generation, cut down at forty-one.