Cecil Armstrong Gibbs: Hypochondriacus (Voice/Piano)

Hypochonriacus was written around 1949. It is scored for solo Voice with Piano accompaniment, and sets a poem by Charles Lamb . It was a test piece for the National Competitive Music Festival, held as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. Cecil Armstrong Gibbs was a prolific and versatile English composer of the 20th century. Gibbs is best known for his output of songs, but he also wrote a considerable amount of music for the amateur choirs that he conducted. His reputation as a song-writer largely lies in his natural gift for text setting – he insisted on giving priority to the words over the music and had very clear musical ideas on what a song should be.