The Voice of Melody

Gibbons at 400

Sunday 23 November 2025 at 3.00 pm
St Mary’s Ewell Parish Church
London Rd, Ewell, EPSOM,
Surrey, KT17 2AY
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Tickets
£18 (entitles you to purchase a Hey for Christmas! ticket for £12)
£5 for ages 18 to 35 (photo ID and proof of age must be shown on entry)
Free for under 18s
Buy tickets online

Box office
✆ 020 8399 2714
✉ ku.gro.riohconeipirnull@xov

When Orlando Gibbons died unexpectedly 400 years ago this year, he was one of the leading composers in England.  He left behind a rich treasure trove of music which belied his 41 years.  This concert celebrates the attractive and inventive vocal and keyboard music that is his legacy, as well as tracing his influence on composers right up to the present day.

We have included many of Gibbons’s best loved works for choir, such as O Clap Your Hands, The Silver Swan, Hosanna to the Son of David and the Magnificat from the Second Service.  We will accompany these with some of his lesser known gems, such as the anthem, O Lord, in thy Wrath Rebuke Me Not, with its powerful dissonances, and the deeply moving Nay let me weep, written on the death of the young Prince of Wales.

Alongside Gibbons’s music, we will present pieces from the last century or so that quote his music, such as Bairstow’s Jesu, Grant Me This, I Pray, and others that bear its impact, such as Leighton’s Drop, Drop Slow Tears.  From today’s composers, we will include Bob Chilcott’s Silver Swan, which draws on Gibbons’s original, and Christian Forshaw’s arrangement of Gibbons’s Drop, Drop Slow Tears, with a haunting, high soprano solo.

We’re delighted to be joined by Jonathan Holmes on the organ

Repertoire

Orlando Gibbons
O clap your hands
O Lord in thy wrath, rebuke me not
Hosanna to the son of David
The silver swan
Magnificat Second Service
Great Kings of Gods
What is our life
Nay let me weep
Almighty and everlasting God
Drop, drop slow tears (arr Forshaw)

Thomas Tomkins
O Praise ye the Lord

Roupen Shakarian
Almighty and everlasting God

Kenneth Leighton
Drop, drop slow tears

Bob Chilcott
Silver swan

Edward Bairstow
Jesu, grant me this I pray