Giovanni Gabrieli
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Biography
Giovanni Gabrieli was a Renaissance choral innovator whose importance is largely overlooked. Born in Venice in 1557, he was the nephew of Andrea Gabrieli (1533-1585), a renowned organist and composer whose style he brought to perfection. It was with this uncle, a former pupil of the Flemish Adrien Willaert and fellow traveler of the Walloon Roland de Lassus, that he learned to play the organ, before fleeing Venice on his advice because of the plague that was raging in the Serenissima. Thanks to his grandfather's connections, he left for Munich, where he remained from 1575 to 1579 as court organist to the Duke of Bavaria, benefiting from Lassus's teaching. On his return to Venice, he remained there until his death, becoming assistant to Claudio Merulo, who had been preferred to his uncle for the post of second organist at St. Mark's Basilica in 1557, a position that Andrea Gabrieli would obtain when Merulo was appointed first organist on the death of Annibale Padovano, in 1566. Giovanni Gabrieli was thus well-schooled between the two finest organ virtuosos in the city, then at the cutting edge of musical life. In 1584, the nephew was promoted to second organist, and his uncle to titular organist, when Merulo relinquished his position to practice in Mantua and then Parma. At this time, the Gabrieli family had a front-row seat, in charge of composing music for church services and religious celebrations. Nevertheless, they were also excellent composers of secular music, to such an extent that they overturned Flemish supremacy and ushered in a glorious period for the Italian Renaissance. While the madrigal was still dominated by the Flemish Jacques De Wert, who renewed the genre, instrumental music was to flourish thanks to the practice of ricercare, a contrapuntal form that could be adapted to each instrument, to the organ as well as within an ensemble, and also to the voice through canzone, of which the young Gabrieli was to prove a master. In 1585, on the death of his uncle, he succeeded him as first organist of Saint Mark's and took over as principal composer until his death. He never ceased to defend his grandfather's work and to promote it through publishing, sometimes to the detriment of his own music. In 1587, he published Concerti di A. e di G. Gabrieli , with parts for six, eight, ten, twelve and sixteen voices with instruments, and in 1589, a volume of their respective madrigals for five voices. In addition to his main post, from 1607 he taught at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, contributing to his reputation as a pedagogue equal to that of the composer. His pupils included Michael Praetorius and, from 1609 to 1613, Heinrich Schütz, among other young musicians eager to learn from a master admired throughout musical Europe. Giovanni Gabrieli ushered in a new era in vocal music, with his double-choir compositions, which he used to create spatial effects by placing choristers in different choir stalls, responding to each other and creating a dizzying polyphony. To make it even more striking, he recruited large vocal and instrumental forces for liturgical and concert purposes. His legacy, consisting of some 250 works, is significant in that it opens up new perspectives, both vocal and instrumental, and its influence will be felt by Italian and German composers. In terms of sacred music, his 1597 collection Sacrae symphoniae includes 42 motets, a Mass, four Toccatas, two Sonatas and fourteen Canzoni, a festival of choral music supported by an ensemble of cornets à bouquins, bassoons, strings, sackbut and trombones. A second volume, published posthumously in 1615, is equally rich in its sense of color and timbre. Another masterpiece, this time secular, Canzoni e sonate (1615), uses ensembles of 3 to 22 voices or instruments and exploits the possibilities of the violin in his Sonate XXI. Giovanni Gabrieli published other collections: Intonationi d'organo (1593); Sacrarum Symphoniarum Continuatio (1600); Canzoni per sonare (1608) and the posthumous Sacrae Symphoniae Diversorum Autorum (1613). A precursor of orchestration, whose lineage would reach its climax with the advent of the symphony, Gabrieli was careful to leave the choice of instrumentation open, displaying the phrase "con ogni sorte di strumenti" at the head of his collections. Subject to recurrent health problems from 1606 onwards, he was occasionally replaced in his functions, before dying of a urinary tract infection on August 12, 1612.
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Giovanni Gabrieli
Choral Concert: Augsburg Cathedral Boys' Choir - Praetorius, M. / Schutz, H. / Gabrieli, A. / Hassler
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Top Tracks
- Track Popularity
- Sonata XX
- Magnificat a 12
- O quam suavis a 7 (arr. for cornett ensemble)
- Canzon Primi Toni a 10
- Sonata XXI
- Canzon X
- Canzon No. 27 Fa sol la re
- Canzon IV
- Canzon Septimi Toni a 8 No. 1
- Canzone Duodecimi Toni. A 8.
- Nunc Dimittis
- Sonata Pian E Forte
- Sacrae Symphoniae - Canzon Septimi Toni
- Canzon Noni Toni, A 12, (1597)
- Canzon Duodecimi Toni, A 10, (No. 1), (1597)
- Canzon XVI A 12
- Canzon Septimi Toni
- Canzona prima a 5
- Canzon IX, (1615)
- Canzon Septimi E Octavi Toni, A 12 (1597)
- Canzon XVII, (1615)
- Canzon Quarti Toni [A 15]
- Canzon Quarta a 4
- Canzon Prima
