Orlando Gibbons' This Is the Record of John is often cited as the quintessential example of its genre, the verse anthem. Anglican church music in the Tudor period included choral settings of the English service and two types of piece called "anthem." They were distinguished by scoring and disposition of voices. The full anthem, a choral setting of mainly Biblical or liturgical texts, roughly took the place of the Latin motet. More complex settings (verse anthems) of some texts appeared, in the hands of Orlando Gibbons as well as William Byrd, Richard Farrant, William Mundy, and Thomas Morley. These pieces juxtapose full choral passages and sections with solo voices and instrumental accompaniment. In the case of This Is the Record of John, the full, five-voiced choir alternates with passages for a single countertenor voice; either an organ or an instrumental consort of five viols accompanies the soloist. One of this piece's numerous sources gives a possible clue as to its genesis: a manuscript now at Christ Church contains the rubric: "This Anthem was made for Dr. Laud, President of Saint John's Oxford, for St. John Baptist's day." Gibbons' text comes from the Gospel According to St. John (John 1:19-23) and describes a dialogue at the outset of the ministry of John the Baptist. Jews and Levites from the Temple authorities come to question John to determine if he is the Messiah. In a subtle way, the verse anthem genre, with its intrinsic dialogue between a solo voice and a larger group, is the perfect vehicle for this text. The verse anthem of the time implied no specific formal structure; Gibbons chooses a simple threefold alternation between solo and choir, with the choir in each case echoing the final phrases of the soloist's text. The melodic writing for the solo voice is quasi-declamatory, supple, and fluid. The accompaniment, quite idiomatic for the viols, often includes cadential flourishes and brief imitative motives (some also imitate the voice). The choral writing remains reasonably direct, though it, too, contains textural alternations between chordal homophony and imitation. The third solo passage presents some almost madrigalian effects: when John quotes Isaiah and calls himself the "Voice of him that crieth in the wilderness," Gibbons' harmonies suddenly shift to a remote minor; the text, however, continues with the command to "make straight the way of the Lord," and the harmony instantly returns to the tonic.

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