Giovanni Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli (c.1554 to 1557 – August 12, 1612) was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms. In the public domain by age This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... In the public domain by age This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Events January 5 - Great fire in Eindhoven, Netherlands. ... Events Spain is effectively bankrupt. ... August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events January 20 - Mathias becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Modern style pipe organ at the concert hall of Aletheia University in Matou, Taiwan The organ is a keyboard instrument with one or more manuals, and usually a pedalboard. ... In music history, the Venetian School is a term used to describe the composers working in Venice from about 1550 to around 1610; it also describes the music they produced. ... Renaissance music is European classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. ... Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 to 1750 (see Dates of classical music eras for a discussion of the problems inherent in defining the beginning and end points). ...

Life

Gabrieli was most likely born in Venice. He was one of five children, and his father came from the town of Carnia to Venice shortly before Giovanni's birth. While not much is known about Giovanni's early life, he probably studied with his uncle, the composer Andrea Gabrieli; he may indeed have been brought up by him, as is implied in some of his later writing. He also went to Munich to study with the renowned Orlando de Lassus at the court of Duke Albrecht V; most likely he stayed there until about 1579. Venice, (Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venexia) is the capital of the region of Veneto and the province of the same name in Italy. ... Andrea Gabrieli (c. ... Munich: Frauenkirche and Town Hall steeple Munich: St. ... Orlande de Lassus, a. ... Events January 6 - The Union of Atrecht united the southern Netherlands under the Duke of Parma, governor in the name of king Philip II of Spain. ...

By 1584 he had returned to Venice, where he became principal organist at the church of San Marco in 1585, after Claudio Merulo left the post; and following his uncle's death the following year also took the post of principal composer. Also after his uncle's death he took on the task of editing much of his music, which would otherwise have been lost; Andrea evidently had had little inclination to publish his own music, but Giovanni's opinion of it was sufficiently high that he devoted a lot of his own time to compiling and editing it for publication. 1584 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Modern style pipe organ at the concert hall of Aletheia University in Matou, Taiwan The organ is a keyboard instrument with one or more manuals, and usually a pedalboard. ... San Marco di Venezia, as seen from the Piazza San Marco St Marks Basilica (Italian: Basilica di San Marco) is the most famous of the churches of Venice and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture. ... 1585 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. ... Claudio Merulo (Merlotti, Merulus, also Claudio da Correggio) (April 8, 1533 – May 4, 1604) was an Italian composer, publisher and organist of the late Renaissance, famous for his innovative keyboard music and his ensemble music in the Venetian polychoral style. ...

Gabrieli's career rose further when he took the additional post of organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, another post he retained for his entire life. San Rocco was the most prestigious and wealthy of all the Venetian confraternities, and second only to San Marco itself in splendor of its musical establishment. Some of the most renowned singers and instrumentalists in Italy performed there and a vivid description of the music there survives in the travel memoirs of the English writer Thomas Coryat. Much of his music was written specifically for that location, although it was probably less than he composed for San Marco. Thomas Coryat (also Coryate) (c. ...

San Marco had a long tradition of musical excellence and Gabrieli's work there made him one of the most noted composers in Europe. The vogue which began with his influential volume Sacrae symphoniae (1597) was such that composers from all over Europe, especially from Germany, came to Venice to study. Evidently he also made his new pupils study the madrigals being written in Italy, so not only did they carry back the grand Venetian polychoral style, but also the more intimate madrigalian style to their home countries; Hans Leo Hassler, Heinrich Schütz, Michael Praetorius and others helped transport the transitional early Baroque music north to Germany, an event which was decisive on subsequent music history. The productions of the German Baroque, culminating in the music of J.S. Bach, were founded on this strong tradition which had its original roots in Venice. For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... Events 17 January - A court case in Guildford recorded evidence that a certain plot of land was used for playing “kreckett” (i. ... A madrigal is a setting for 3–6 voices of a secular text, often in Italian. ... The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation. ... Hans Leo Hassler (baptized October 26, 1564 – June 8, 1612) was a German composer and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. ... Heinrich Schütz. ... Michael Praetorius. ... The 1748 Haussmann portrait of the composer Bach redirects here. ...

Gabrieli was increasingly ill after about 1606, at which time church authorities began to appoint deputies to take over duties he could no longer perform. He died in 1612, of complications from a kidney stone. Events January 27 - The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins ending in their execution on January 31 May 17 - Supporters of Vasili Shusky invade the Kremlin and kill Premier Dmitri December 26 - Shakespeares King Lear performed in court Storm buries a village of St Ismails near... Events January 20 - Mathias becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ... Bladder stone redirects here. ...

Music and style

Though Gabrieli composed in many of the forms current at the time, he clearly preferred sacred vocal and instrumental music. All of his secular vocal music is relatively early; late in his career he concentrated on sacred vocal and instrumental music that exploited sonority for maximum effect.

Like composers before and after him, he would use the unusual layout of the San Marco church, with its two choir lofts facing each other, to create striking spatial effects. Most of his pieces are written so that a choir or instrumental group will first be heard from the left, followed by a response from the musicians to the right (antiphon). While this polychoral style had been extant for decades—possibly Adrian Willaert was the first to make use of it, at least in Venice—Gabrieli was the first to use carefully determined groups of instruments and singers, with precise directions for instrumentation, and in more than two groups. The acoustics were such in the church—and they have changed little in four hundred years—that instruments, correctly positioned, could be heard with perfect clarity at distant points. Thus instrumentation which looks strange on paper, for instance a single string player versus a large group of brass instruments, can be made to sound, in San Marco, in perfect balance. A choir or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. ... This article is about the musical term. ... This article is about the musical term. ... Adrian Willaert (c. ...

In particular, his arguably best-known piece, In Ecclesiis, is a showcase of such polychoral techniques, making use of four separate groups of instrumental and singing performers, underpinned by the omnipresent Organ and Continuo. In Ecclesiis is arguably Giovanni Gabriellis most famous single work. ...

External links

• Free scores by Giovanni Gabrieli in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Giovanni Gabrieli in the Werner Icking Music Archive
• Listen to free recordings of songs from Umeå Akademiska Kör.

The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) is a sheet music archive which focuses on choral and vocal music in the public domain. ... The Werner Icking Music Archive, often abbreviated WIMA, is a web archive of public domain sheet music. ...

References and further reading

• Richard Charteris, Giovanni Gabrieli (ca. 1555–1612): a Thematic Catalogue of his Music with a Guide to the Source Materials and Translations of his Vocal Texts. New York, 1996.
• Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi. New York, Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-486-28151-5
• Denis Arnold, Giovanni Gabrieli and the Music of the Venetian High Renaissance. London: Oxford University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-19-315247-9
• Denis Arnold, Monteverdi. London, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1975. ISBN 0-460-03155-4
• Article "Giovanni Gabrieli," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5