The Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli died on August 12, 1612, making this the 400th anniversary year of his death. He spent most of his professional life associated with the two major churches in Venice, Saint Mark’s Basilica and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, the confraternity associated with the Church of Saint Roch. Living during that period of transition between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, he is the composer best associated with the so-called “Venetian School,” best known for its sophisticated counterpoint.
Much has been made of how the physical layout of Saint Mark’s lent itself to composing music for multiple ensembles, many of which would be situated in their own niches (nicchie) within the sanctuary. This has led to many performances of Gabrieli’s music that pay more attention to its spatial qualities than to the music itself. When those qualities can be effectively reproduced in a performing space, they can be quite impressive; but they can also distract from the equally impressive logical, grammatical, and rhetorical qualities of the music itself.
The are two major collections of Gabrieli’s liturgical music, which he called “sacred symphonies.” The first volume appeared in 1597 and the second after his death in 1615. To honor the 400th anniversary of his death, Jeffrey Skidmore planned a recording for Hyperion featuring selections from both of these volumes, sung by his Ex Cathedra ensemble of ten vocalists (two sopranos, one countertenor, three tenors, two baritones, and two basses), along with two organists and two theorbo players. They are joined by two quintets of period brass instruments, Concerto Palatino, directed by Bruce Dickey and Charles Toet, and His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts (HMSC).
The notes by John Whenham for the accompanying booklet have much to say about the physical layout of Saint Mark’s and how it would support the spatial disposition of multiple ensembles. However, in his own introductory note, Skidmore makes it clear that he was not interested in the “reconstruction” of spatial effects, a decision I strongly support when one considers the relatively impoverished conditions of most listening technologies these days. Far more important is to provide the listener an appreciation for how Gabrieli could organize the voice-leading of many separated voices of counterpoint in such a way as to support an infrastructure of harmonic progression. How many voices? On this recording the largest number is seventeen, although that is based on a fourteen-part setting in the 1615 collection to which three parts were added in an unknown hand.
The astute reader will observe that even fourteen separate parts is more than ten vocalists can handle. Skidmore addressed this shortcoming by assigning instruments to some of the vocal parts, allowing others to “hold down the fort,” so to speak, for the fanfare-like flourishes that were specifically intended for brass players. Many of those flourishes will be recognized as formulaic, by the way. One encounters them in the music of Claudio Monteverdi, who was probably a major influence on Gabrieli’s work. Skidmore’s selection also includes one instrumental selection, a ten-voice Canzon that requires the full resources of both HMSC and Concerto Palatino.
While Whenam’s notes discuss the changes of style that take place between the two collections (including the influence of Monteverdi), Skidmore has not arranged his selections in two groups, one for each collection. Rather, he alternates, encouraging the listener to appreciate the overall diversity, rather than any stylistic “progress.” I can appreciate this decision. Gabrieli was more concerned with the day-to-day demands of making music for religious occasions than he was with whether or not the music he took the trouble to write represented any “maturing” of his work. Thus, when he was exposed to what others (such as Monteverdi) were doing, it would be only natural that he would try his hand at similar devices.
Thus, the overall value of this recording is that Skidmore has provided an engaging sampling of the different devices Gabrieli explored; and the variety across those samples is more important than whether or not they are representative of the composer’s entire two-volume collection.