Gibbons’s Fantazia of foure parts is, to my mind, one of the jewels of Renaissance keyboard polyphony. It somehow captures the feeling of freedom inherent in a fantasia whilst adhering to the strict form of an Italian canzona—a form of polyphonic writing that was popular during the Renaissance. In his book English Keyboard Music before the Nineteenth Century, John Caldwell notes seven distinct themes in the Fantazia, introduced in succession. As he suggests, there are possibly even more, but Gibbons’s ingenious integration of the themes into the counterpoint often makes it difficult to individuate shorter or more secondary themes and fragments.

from notes by Mishka Rushdie Momen © 2024