Gibbons - O clap your hands
November 9, 2024
A.J. Keller, associate director of choral organizations, conducts University Chorale in a performance of O clap your hands by Orlando Gibbons.
About this Work
The English Reformation resulted in several transformations in liturgical practice. The formal structure of services was significantly altered, the English language was introduced into the liturgy, and the Latin motet was replaced by a new, English-language genre of sacred vocal polyphony: the anthem. These generally fell into one of two categories: Full Anthems, in which the entire choir sang unaccompanied, and Verse Anthems, which involved passages for solo singers accompanied by organ or an ensemble of strings. Gibbons’s O clap your hands is a classic example of the former. He utilizes an eight-voice texture throughout, fully exploiting the expansive voicing by incorporating antiphonal, call-and-response singing in the cori spezzati (broken choirs) style that emerged out of Italy in the sixteenth century. The piece is quintessentially English in the sense that all of the melodic writing is rooted in the natural cadence of English speech.