ORLANDO GIBBONS "With a Merrie Noyse". Second Service & Consort Anthems Fretwork. Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, Bill Ives

The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, led by Bill Ives, is joined by Rogers Covey-Crump, other distinguished soloists, and Fretwork, for a program of sacred music by Orlando Gibbons. Regarded as one of the greatest English composers of the early 17th century, Gibbons enjoyed an illustrious career at the court of King James I as a ‘Gentleman of the Chapel Royal’ and was appointed organist of Westminster Abbey two years before his untimely death in 1625. His Second Service and three of his verse anthems (This is the Record of John; Great king of Gods; See, see the Word is incarnate—recorded here with viols for the first time) are heard in new editions prepared by Dr David Skinner.