Giovanni Gabrieli: The splendour of the polyphonic choir at St Mark’s

The programme features the major polychoral instrumental works by Giovanni Gabrieli from his *Sacræ Symphoniæ* (1597) and *Canzoni e Sonate* (1608), which were composed for St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The works will be performed with several cornets, trombones, dulcians, violins, violas da gamba and two organs.

Performed by instrumentalists from the Institute for Early Music and Performance Practice at the HfK Bremen.
Conducted by Maximilien Brisson

Programme 

• Sonata XVIII a 14 * 
• Canzon per sonar Duodecimi toni a 10 † 
• Canzon VIII a 8 * 
• Canzon XVII a 12 * 
• Canzon XIV a 10 * 
• Canzon XVI a 12 * 
• Sonata XIX a 15 * 
• Canzon per sonar Quarti toni a 15 † 
• Sonata XXI con tre violini * 
• Sonata Octavi toni a 12 † 
• Canzon XI a 8 * 
• Sonata XX a 22 * 

* Canzoni & Sonate, Venedig 1615 
† Sacræ Symphoniæ, Venedig 1597 
Mit Orgelintonationen von Giovanni und Andrea Gabrieli (ca.1533–1585) aus Intonationi d’organo, Venedig 1593. 

Polyphonic music – music for two or more choirs situated in separate spaces – often hastily labelled the ‘Venetian style’, was extraordinarily popular in the late Renaissance not only in Venice but across much of Italy and even north of the Alps. Although this style neither originated in Venice nor was it ever practised exclusively there, it undoubtedly reached its zenith in the Serenissima. Hardly any name is as closely associated with polyphonic choral music as that of the Gabrielis: Andrea, the uncle, and Giovanni, the nephew, both of whom served as organists at the ‘chapel’ of the Doge’s Palace – the magnificent Basilica di San Marco.

Giovanni Gabrieli was born between 1554 and early 1557. From around 1566, Giovanni, his brother Giacomo and their mother Paola appear to have been supported by their maternal uncle, Andrea Gabrieli. Upon his return from Munich, where he had been in the service of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, Andrea had been appointed second organist at San Marco. Both boys eventually took their uncle’s surname. In 1575, Andrea secured his nephew a position with his former employer in Bavaria, possibly in an effort to remove him from Venice at the onset of a severe plague epidemic. There, Giovanni worked under the direction of Orlando di Lasso among the ‘Virtuosi’ of Duke Albrecht V. Upon his return to Venice – possibly following the Duke’s death in 1579 – Giovanni became organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, the wealthiest and most influential of the six great Venetian confraternities. He held this post until 1606. As early as 1584, he had also taken over the position of second organist at San Marco on a temporary basis, whilst his uncle had risen to become first organist. However, Andrea Gabrieli died as early as 1585, and Giovanni was appointed his successor as first organist – a post he held until his death in 1612.

As a widely influential figure, Gabrieli was a much sought-after teacher. Particularly famous is the case of Heinrich Schütz, whom the Elector of Saxony sent to Venice to study under Gabrieli. It was through this channel that Gabrieli’s multi-choir style and many of his characteristic harmonic features found their way to Protestant Saxony. Gabrieli is also credited with playing a key role in liberating counterpoint and polyphony from the conventional patterns of earlier 16th-century music, thereby paving the way for Baroque concepts of musical rhetoric and textual interpretation. At the same time, he was the first composer to explicitly assign specific instruments to particular parts and to begin writing idiomatically for the respective instruments. Pioneering in this respect were the instrumental canzonas and sonatas of his Sacræ Symphoniæ from 1597. Equally significant are those works in which vocal and explicitly instrumental parts are combined – in contrast to parts which, although presumably performed instrumentally, are composed according to vocal principles. In the posthumously published Canzoni & Sonate (1615), polyphonic instrumental music finally reaches its full maturity.

The multi-choir ‘Venetian’ style – which, as already mentioned, was not exclusively Venetian in either its origins or its dissemination – is often closely associated with the architecture of St Mark’s Basilica. Indeed, this church was particularly well suited to such music: on either side of the choir there were opposing galleries, each with its own organ. They were far enough apart to create a stereophonic effect, yet close enough and sufficiently elevated to maintain the musical connection between the two sides. On major feast days, these arrangements could be supplemented by temporary wooden platforms, which allowed additional choirs to be positioned around the choir area.

Gabrieli was, however, also organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Every year, on the feast day of Saint Roch, the city’s most magnificent musical event was held there. The finest musicians from all the churches in Venice gathered to perform concerts lasting several hours. According to the account by the English traveller Thomas Coryat in his travel book Coryat’s Crudities, published in 1611, ‘sixteen or twenty’ singers and just as many instrumentalists sometimes took part, accompanied by ‘seven fine organs in a row’. Coryat also reports on the use of trombones and cornets alongside violins and violas da gamba in sixteen-part instrumental music – an instrumentation that would likely have been more commonly found in San Marco or another church, as the viola da gamba, unlike a violin or a wind instrument, could hardly be played from a gallery.

The multi-choir instrumental works by Gabrieli being performed today could have been composed for either of these venues – or, more likely, for both at the same time. It is interesting to note that these two performance contexts differ significantly in several respects. Particularly significant is the spatial arrangement of the choirs: in San Rocco, they were on the same level as the audience (or slightly raised on makeshift wooden platforms); in San Marco, however, they performed from opposing galleries and from lower, temporary platforms. This had a decisive influence on the perception of the music. In San Marco, only the few people behind the rood screen – the Doge, his guests and the clergy – were able to experience the full spatial impact of the music, whilst the visitors in the nave heard primarily the reverberation of the sounds in the vast space. In San Rocco, by contrast, a far larger audience, much like Thomas Coryat, stood directly opposite several organs and numerous instrumental choirs. Whilst the overwhelming surround sound that the Doge could enjoy in San Marco was absent here, it offered an impressive stereophonic listening experience in its place.

For today’s concert, St Jakobi Church offers a rare opportunity to combine both performance settings. The choirs and organs are situated in front of you at audience level, just as in San Rocco. At the same time, however, the ensembles will also be heard from the galleries and from all directions, just as in the choir of San Marco. You can experience this music with Thomas Coryat, filled with wonder as you hear it for the first time as a (time) traveller – or like the Doge of Venice, seated beneath the golden mosaics and splendour of San Marco.