Giovanni Gabrieli
(1553-1612)
Music for Brass Volume
3
Any real understanding of Giovanni Gabrieli's music is impossible
without some appreciation of its context within the Venice of the sixteenth
Century. As the main trading post between East and West, Venice was a rich and
prosperous city; guarded by a powerful naval fleet, it contained some of the
finest art and architecture and successfully exported items of the most superb
quality, including books, cloth and glass. Venetians enjoyed political stability
and felt genuinely privileged, with a deep pride in the quality of their own
standard of living and their ability to impress foreign dignitaries. This was
reflected in the ceremonial aspects of public life in which all strata of
society were involved and where the religious was always healthily mixed with
the temporal: Venice was never a close friend of the Church of Rome.
Processions were regularly held on important civil and religious occasions;
they would often be led by the republic's ruler, the Doge, whose rôle was as
much caretaker and guardian a, head of state; they usually began around the
magnificent Piazza and would then proceed into the Byzantine Basilica of St
Mark itself. They were of the utmost importance to the community, being
governed by a careful protocol dating back to the fifteenth century which
ensured the greatest degree of solemnity and pomp; one of the most important
customs was that at least six silver trumpets should play at such events,
ensuring the necessity of instrumental music to accompany all great
celebrations in, and of the Most Serene Republic.
Into this splendour came Giovanni Gabrieli; his exact date of birth is
not clear, but it was some time between 1553 and 1556: the unclear handwriting
in his obituary indicates that he was either 56 or 58 at the time of his death
in 1612. He was born into a musical family: his uncle Andrea (c. 1510-1586) had
worked and studied in Munich and was appointed to St Mark's in 1566 as
organist, quickly becoming a celebrated composer, especially of ceremonial
music, thus continuing a tradition of formal music-making going back to the
thirteenth century and one which became particularly important following the
appointment of the Flemish musician Adrian Willaert (c. 1490-1562) as Director
of Music in 1528.
We know, apart from almost certainly having lessons with Andrea, that
Giovanni Gabrieli also worked in Munich at the court of Duke Albrecht V and,
like his uncle before him, studied there with the great Orlando di Lasso
(1532-1594), probably returning to Venice after Albrecht's death in 1579. He
deputised as organist and composer following the resignation of the previous
incumbent, Claudio Merulo (1533-1604), who in 1591 became organist to the
Steccata Chapel in Parma for a higher salary. In the same year he became
organist of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, apart -time post. He was to hold
down both positions until his death in 1612 from a kidney-stone complaint which
had troubled him for over six years.
Giovanni Gabrieli's time as a colleague of his uncle was unfortunately
short-lived, as Andrea died at the then extremely ripe age of 76, the year
after his nephew's appointment. The need for a successor to continue his grand
style of composition must have been in the minds of the authorities when they
gave Giovanni the job; they were not to be disappointed. Immediately he began
to edit and publish his uncle's Concerti, often written for cori
spezzati or divided choirs of voices and instruments, which was greatly to
influence his own compositional style; Giovanni's genius was to realise the
full potential of their spatial technique and to carry it even further. As the
new principal composer of St Mark's, he was granted permission to hire
freelance singers and players to enlarge the virtuoso ensemble already
established permanently in 1567, and he embarked on a series of choral and
instrumental works which utilised not only the galleries of the Basilica, but
also special platforms which were erected for important festivities,
accommodating as many as five separate groups.
It would be easy to think of Gabrieli as just a composer of special
effects, but the range and expression of his compositions is remarkable. At no
time is Gabrieli a formulaic composer and he was constantly experimenting with
every aspect of musical technique. Even a cursory examination of his two main
collections, the 1597 Sacrae Symphoniae and the purely instrumental
posthumously published 1615 Canzoni e Sonate will reveal that no two
works are really similar. Sonority is especially important – groups of
contrasting high and low voices are common and he may even surprisingly,
dispense with alto and tenor voices altogether. There is both mastery of
intricate counterpoint and yet immensely impressive block chords; part-writing
and complex rhythms reflect both the virtuosity and sheer musicianship of the
players for whom the works were written and in the later works especially there
is a harmonic audacity which pushes late Renaissance music making to its very
limits. It comes as no surprise that Gabrieli's most famous pupil Heinrich
Schütz (1585-1672) said of him in a preface to a set of his own Sacrae
Symphoniae which he dedicates to his teacher "But Gabricli, ye mortal
gods – what a man!"
Giovanni Gabrieli, however, had taken the grand multi-choral style as
far as it could go: it was the end of a great era, the Venetian High
Renaissance. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) had already ventured into opera
with Orfeo in 1607 and his appointment as maestro di cappella of
St Mark's was to usher in a very different sort of music-making; there is sadly
no evidence to indicate that Gabrieli's music was ever played there again until
his modern rediscovery.
This is the third and final volume of the world premiere recording of
Gabrieli's complete instrumental ensemble canzonas and sonatas, again bringing
a veritable cornucopia of musical splendours. The seemingly fanciful titles to
the work, contained in the 1597 Sacrae Symphoniae (Canzon Noni Toni,
Duodecimi Toni, Septimi Toni etc.) do not refer, as has often been
postulated with no real evidence, to the Church modes on which they might be
based, but to melodic fragments based on various modes known to both Milanese
and Venetian musicians which were possibly of both musical and emotional
significance. More musicological study is needed to reveal their exact meanings
but the eight toni referred to in the 1610 Concerti Ecclesiastici by
Giovanni Paolo Cima certainly point the way for further research.
A grand opening tutti in the Canzon in f'cho Duodecimi Toni precedes
an ingenious exploration both within and between the two five-part choir, of
every aspect of echo effect; the single ten-part grouping of Canzon XV eschews
antiphony in favour of a strongly argued contrapuntal development of the
opening rising theme. A high semiquaver duet over ascending faux-bourdon or
first-inversion chords forms an extraordinary coda.
The conservative five-voice Canzon Prima has deft harmonic and
rhythmic touches which point towards the imagination of the later works while Canzon
Duodecimi Toni à 10 No. 2 genuinely prefigures the baroque concerto grosso
with its repeated ritornello and virtuoso episodes for the two soloists over a
simple harmonic background.
Canzon Quarti Toni is surely the most lavish piece in the 1597
collection: fifteen voices in three choirs, lying almost exclusively in the
alto to bass registers, trade rich exchanges which eventually lead to taxing
passage-work for the first voices in each group. Canzon Septimi Toni à No.
1 conversely works the opening theme into delightful rhythmic interplay
between the two groups and a cheerful motif dominates the double choir
antiphony of canzon Duodecimi Toni à 8 before a resplendent finish.
In Canzon X Gabrieli pushes his technique and harmonic language
as far as he dare (only Sonata XVIII goes further). No main theme is
used but each is developed and then unfolds towards another; the brief
dance-like triple-time section moves through six keys in as many bars, while
the contrary-motion scales at the end sound uncompromisingly modern.
At work to explore seriously opposing rhythms is the six part Canzon
IV: the essentially lyrical opening theme is punctuated four times by a
bold triple-time ritornello and the strong "canzona rhythm" unison
nine bars before the end comes as a genuine shock before the majestic close.
Solemn counterpoint, largely in the soprano and alto registers
characterizes the 1597 Canzon Primi Toni à 10 before an attractively
lilting three-four section; the album ends with the last two sonatas from the
1615 collection, one the apotheosis of the old, the other a pointer to the new.
Subtitled "for three violins…or other instruments" (this is
appropriate as the writing is not especially idiomatic for violins), Sonata
XXI has a genuine continuo accompaniment and three equal soloists its
vision and style are clearly of the early baroque. Its predecessor, the massive
Sonata XX employs a record 22 players divided into five choirs, each
with a different make-up, but the third conspicuously a coro grave of
four trombones. Each group presents its own distinctive material, the fifth
particularly battle-like in character Gabrieli leaves two silent beats before
the grandiose first tutti, before repeating it, as if to wallow in its
richness. From then on the piece is through-composed, moving into and out of
triple time but with an overall impression of lush antiphonal and sonorous
contrast for its own sake, rather than musical argument: Venetian splendour can
be taken no further. Its timeless quality is no less impressive now than it was
some four hundred years ago.
To give some idea of the sheer impact of Gabrieli's music on his
contemporaries we have the record of the travelling Englishman, Thomas Coryat,
who in 1608, having visited San Rocco, where Gabrieli was of course organist
and principal composer as well as carrying out his principal duties at St
Mark's, on 6th August heard "the best musicke that I ever I did in all my
life both in the morning and the afternoone, so good that I would willingly goe
an hundred miles a foote at any time to hear the like:” He then gives an almost
reverentially detailed description of the instrumentalists, singers and the
varying groups employed. As for Holy Week of the same year, he was no less
impressed: "This feast consisted principally of Musicke, which was both
vocall and instrumentall, so good, so delectable, so rare, so super excellent,
that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the
like. But how others were affected with it I know not; for mine owne part I can
say this, that I was for the time even rapt up with Saint Paul into the third
heaven".
Eric Crees