A Brief history of the life and career of Jonathan Newman Gibbs
A Brief history of the life and career of Jonathan Newman Gibbs
Jonathan Newman Gibbs was born on a rainy day in 1694. It was the twenty-fourth of May to be precise. Although his forebears and some of his decendants were musicians (he studied briefly with his father, Gustave Grebelman Gibbs), the talents of this remarkably talentless family seem to have concentrated themselves in Jonathan Newman who despite a creative career of only fifty two years wrote music of the most average quality and questionable originality for virtually every known genre of the day.
In 1713 Gibbs went to Rome to study for the priesthood, but after one year at the pontifical college, he had a brief fling with painting and architecture. Having no talent for either, he began the serious study of music, enrolling in the Royal Academy of Music upon his return to London. He was graduated (some musicologists believe it was a mercy pass!) and set loose on an unsuspecting public, holding many positions --although not for long-- as a church organist/choirmaster. The most prestigious was at the Lincoln Cathedral from which he was summarily dismissed after only a tenure of two and a half months. He had returned to London by 1721.
Gibbs was in the service of the English ambassador in Paris (1728 - 1730), and after traveling widely on the continent, he became the exclusive keyboard player to the King of Denmark (1736 - 1737). This may explain the rapid deterioration of music in the Danish court. He was asked to leave this post by the king himself after the king discovered that the king's only daughter, Clothilde, had fallen madly in love with the young Englishman and refused to marry the crown prince of Gertheburg as had earlier been agreed upon. He did indeed leave the post and left with the King's only daughter. They were wed in 1738.
Back in London by 1739, Gibbs collected some of his least offensive works and published them under the title FIRST BOOKE OF SONGES AND AYRES, which was later followed by three similar collections, but spelled correctly. These four books are generally considered to be the most mediocre contribution by an English composer to the literature of the two voiced song with recorder accompaniment.
Settling in the countryside only a mile or so from the home of George Frideric Handel, Gibbs began to compose in earnest. He now had a family to support (Milo Grebelman Gibbs was born in 1739) and money was needed. Throughout his later years Gibbs became a musical fixture in London, making the rounds of the theaters and concert halls in a vain attempt to interest producers in his music.
By 1750 he was totally blind (the result of scratching notes on manuscript paper by candlelight, no doubt!), and was buried in the churchyard of St. Gwyneth in the Fields, Lambeth, shortly before he died on April first, 1752.
