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FHR 188
Release Date: November 2025
The Brook Street Band
Rachel Harris violin
Tatty Theo cello
Carolyn Gibley harpsichord
Recorded at The Great Barn, Oxnead Hall, Norfolk, UK, 7-10 February 2025
Produced, recorded and edited by Robin Bigwood
Joseph Gibbs is one of the 18th century’s best-kept secrets; his music is characterful and individual, fusing the best of Italianate virtuosity with English and quirky Gibbs-ian humour.
Despite the obvious brilliance of his compositions, the 8 Solos for Violin and Basso Continuo, Op. 1 of c. 1746 are one of only two published sets of music, and there are scant references to Gibbs in the years after his death.
However, the re-emergence of his portrait (painted by Thomas Gainsborough) in the early years of the 20th century sparked a curiosity and interest in Gibbs’s music, which has been described as amongst ‘the finest English violin sonatas of the century’.
Joseph GIBBS (1698–1788)
8 Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo, Op. 1 (c. 1746)
Tracks:
| 1 – 4 | Sonata No. 1 in D minor |
| 5 – 8 | Sonata No. 2 in A major |
| 9 – 12 | Sonata No. 3 in G major |
| 13 – 16 | Sonata No. 4 in B flat major |
| 17 – 20 | Sonata No. 5 in E major |
| 21 – 24 | Sonata No. 6 in F major |
| 25 – 27 | Sonata No. 7 in A minor |
| 28 – 31 | Sonata No. 8 in E flat major |
“The three members of The Brook Street Band perform with admirable engagement and subtlety here – robust where necessary, deft elsewhere – and have been most attractively recorded…This venturesome disc expands our appreciation of English instrumental music of the period in high style.”
Music Web International
“The members of The Brook Street Band, Rachel Harris (violin), Tatty Theo (cello), and Carolyn Gibley (harpsichord) certainly seem to consider this music to be of high stature as they expose all of its finer stylistic details and help extricate this composer’s name from the shadows”
Classical Music Sentinal
“The Brook Street Band … presents the music …so that one can easily understand the composer’s role as a bridge between the Baroque and gallant styles in these tasteful interpretations.”
Pizzicato, 4*
“…sympathetic and imaginative performances by the Brook Street Band they emerge as fine compositions in their own right. The group’s violinist Rachel Harris brings her extensive understanding of the music of this period to bear on Gibbs’ felicitous melodic lines and rhetorical phrases to bring out his unique musical voice. …fine music persuasively played.”
Early Music Review
“These sonatas are very fine works [and] The Brook Street Band shows how to perform them. This is nothing short but an ideal interpretation. Rachel Harris is an outstanding violinist, who fully explores the features of Gibbs’ sonatas. Technically her performance is immaculate, her dealing with the double stopping excellent, and there is some good dynamic shading.. She has the perfect harmonic and rhythmic support of cello and harpsichord.”
Musica Dei Donum
“…an overall peppery, earthy, twinkling directness and individuality that’s been beautifully brought out in Harris, Theo and Gibley’s elegantly spirited performances.
Add The Brook Street Band’s customary easy-going conviviality and vivacity, plus close but natural capturing (in The Great Barn of Oxnead Hall, Norfolk) which emphasises the sense of intimacy, and Gibbs couldn’t have hoped for better modern-times championing.”
Charlotte Gardner, dCS Only the Music
“There is something engagingly warm about this music. And the performers bring out a real sense of three friends simply enjoying themselves… These sonatas deserve to be better known and this lovely disc, bringing out the warm-heartedness of the music, should go a long way towards this.”
Planet Hugill
