Armstrong Gibbs

Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (10 August 1889 – 12 May 1960) was an English composer. Though best known for his choral music and, in particular, songs, Gibbs also devoted much of his career to the amateur choral and festival movements in Britain. Although his music is rarely played today he attained a high level of popularity in his lifetime. His slow waltz “Dusk” for orchestra and piano earned him more royalties than any of his other works combined. It was requested by Princess Elizabeth to be performed on her 18th birthday. Biography Early years and education Gibbs was born in Great Baddow, a village near Chelmsford in Essex, Whitehead, died on 12 August 1891 when Gibbs was only two, having given birth to a stillborn son. While Gibbs had many privileges in his childhood owing to his father’s wealth, he was deprived of any permanent mother figure, having been raised by a nurse and five maiden aunts in three month rotations. Gibbs’s childhood was further troubled by his father’s method of child-rearing; he sought to “toughen up” his son by making him sleep in the attic, forcing him to ride and jump a pony at the age of six, and throwing him into deep water in order to learn to swim. This m