What was Orlando thinking?

 What was Orlando thinking?

Sadly, nobody knows. He is from such an old time era, that we do not have much record about him.

Even the very piece I love written by him, 6 parts variations on "Go from my window, I have no idea when this piece was written. In fact, we don't know for sure if this piece is written by him.

This piece is "attributed" to Orlando Gibbons. But we probably, definitely, think it was written by Orlando Gibbons because of the quality of the music. No one in that time era could have possibly written such complex and beautiful polyphonic music.

I would guess that "Go from my window" was written around 1620s. One of the first published works of Gibbons' is the Fantasias, which were engraved on the plates (which historians think was around 1610). Although "Go from my window" is also a Fantasia, this was not published or numbered along with other Fantasias he wrote. In fact, most of the works by Orlando had been published after his death- among twenty four fantasias he wrote, only nine of them had been published during his lifetime. Who knows when he wrote this piece of music, but it sure hadn't been published in his early age.

Assuming that "Go from my window" was written in sometime around 1620s, let's look at what was going on Orlando's life. He had been an Organist at Chapel Royal, but as soon as he got in to the Privy Chamber, he says goodbye to Chapel Royal.  Now he moved on to Private music, away from church music.

The original tune of the variations on "Go from my window" was not a sacred song. It is one of the famous secular song, ballade, during 16th century. You will understand that it is not a sacred song when you see the lyrics :

Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    For the wind is in the west and the cuckoo's in his nest,
    And you can't have a lodging here.

    Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    O the weather it is warm, it will never do thee harm,
    And you can't have a lodging here.

    Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    The wind is blowing high, and the ship is lying by,
    And you can't have a harbouring here.

    Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    The wind and the rain have brought him back again,
    But he can't have a harbouring here.

    Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    The devil's in the man, that he will not understand
    That he can't have a lodging here.

As you can see, it's probably not about God.

I bet Orlando Gibbons got sick of playing church music all the time, that he wanted to create a beautiful six part polyphony music for an ensemble. Oh, it might as well have been his favorite song. 

That's my theory.. What do you think?

In-depth look of "Go from my Window"

Orlando Gibbons takes a simple tune that goes G-G-A-B-A-G..., and makes so many different variations, each unique. I love all of them, from beginning to the end!
There isn't one point in which you cannot hear the main melody. Within six parts, either one or two voices have the melody, while others accompany, or answer in fifth above. From the very beginning to the measure 64, it is always one voice at a time that has the main melody, while others decorate or accompany. Let's look at the very beginning of this piece for an example.

Second Treble has the main melody-mared with the red rectangle- while others have accompaniment. It is notable that they imitate each other. They are usually three quarters descending. It seems like the basic idea of this figure comes from the first tenor in the first measure, three quarters: E-D-C. This figure comes back in first treble in third measure, and the inverse of this figure comes in first treble in third measure, along with treble-making it voice crossing. Other voices are either slightly different variations of this figure, or harmony. 

After the second Treble finishes off her melody line, the melody is now passed off to the first Bass in the measure 17. Again, the melody line is marked with red rectangle below.

As you can see, instead of three quarter notes figure, this time there is an introduction of dotted quarter notes. As the melody goes on, inner voices primarily have a dotted quarter note followed by three eight notes figure, imitating each other in the following measures below(marked with blue rectangles).

As you might have noticed, the imitation gets more complex, even invading the melody line. 

For each variation, a different voice (instrument) gets a melody, and the other voices have imitations of certain figure. 

This continues until measure 64. And there is a pause, and starting at measure 65, here comes the beauty of this piece. The melody is distributed all over the voices, and there are more than one primary figure that voices imitate each other. When you just look at the parts, you might not realize that there is even melody in this passage, but when you listen to it, you can clearly hear the melody- they are carefully planned. 

This extremely complicated polyphonic texture somehow makes sense when you listen to it- they all decorate the melody and make a beautiful harmony. All the figures that made a primary character for each variation have merged in this variation. There are a lot of elision- while one phrase end, the beginning of other phrase overlaps, so the music never ends; it sounds like carefully intertwined puzzle. 

There are much more to talk about Gibbons' wondrous work, but I think this is enough for now!