Giovanni Gabrieli

L’Epos, Palermo,2012

At the height of the Venetian musical tradition begun by Adriano Willaert, Giovanni Gabrieli (1554/56-1612) and Claudio Monteverdi were among the leading Italian and European composers in the late 16 th century. Gabrieli composed sacred music for large multiple choirs, mainly for civic and religious ceremonies in the Basilica of San Marco. He was also the initiator of a repertory of ensemble instrumental music whose complexity and standards were equal to the best sacred and secular vocal music of the time. By consulting fresh documentary sources and carefully re-contextualising the musical sources, this book offers a new image of the composer, more closely reflecting the highly varied Venetian musical life at the time. It also provides Greater insight into Gabrieli’s leading role, albeit within the St Mark’s multiple choir tradition, in the rise of a new concertato style and all those technical and expressive models typical of the new music in the 17th-century.