Giovanni Gabrieli Sacrae Symphoniae: No. 2: Canzon septimi toni, for 8 parts, C. 172 Sacrae Symphoniae: No. 6: Sonata pian e forte for 8 parts, C. 176 Giovanni Gabrielis experience with polychoral music likely began when he was a child. Though little documentation survives to establish the relationship, he may very well have been raised by his uncle, Andrea Gabrieli, who was then maestro di capella at St. Marks, Venice. The most important church in the city of Venice already had a long tradition of polychoral music, which may have come to it from Ferrara. In addition, Giovanni studied music under Orlande de Lassus in the Bavarian court of Munich, another stronghold of polychoral composition. Yet in the music of Gabrieli, especially in the instrumental works of his 1597 Sacrae Symphoniae, the polychoral idiom seems to be turning a corner. As Dennis Arnold noted, there is little which could not be sung by voices, the composer is here evolving a more intentionally instrumental music than perhaps had existed before. The parts to his Canzon Septimi toni, for instance, bear the same indications of voicing as to the motets in the same collection. The musical flavor of the work, however, breathes a fresh instrumental spirit. The Canzon opens in a straightforward manner, with a four-voiced exposition of an imitative motive in the first choir. After a lengthy approach to a cadence, the second choir enters with contrasting material, including a secondary imitative motive that will receive bold expansion later in the piece. A triple-meter passage intervenes, which begins once again in a very straightforward alternation of quick phrases, but develops quickly into a highly syncopated dance-like interlude. The next duple-meter phrases explore different sequential adaptations of the musical material and lead to an extended dialogue between two upper voices before cadencing into a repeat of the triple-meter passage. Twice more, the composer leads through repeats of this second duple passage, with more and more complex melodic embellishments on its tunes (even in the bass trombone part, as a testament to the skill of Gabrielis players). An upward sequence in both choirs signals the approach to a final, resplendently ornamented cadence. In a polychoral vocal motet by the same composer, the words and their rhythms might have guided this structure, but in the Canzon Septimi toni, sheer musical invention drives the development. Polychoral writing may have been over a century old in Venice and northern Italy by the time Giovanni Gabrieli began his musical career. As he learned the style from his Venetian uncle Andrea Gabrieli and from Orlando di Lasso, his teacher in Munich, the music tends to proceed in polychoral echoes; two or more choirs reiterate similar material in powerful, blocklike alternations. With his 1597 publication the Sacrae Symphoniae, however, Giovanni seems to be moving in a different direction, one less involved in slavish devotion to repeated motives, but more involved in musical dialogue between the choirs. This dialogue is evidenced even in his simpler compositions, such as the relatively modest Sonata Pian e forte from the 1597 Sacrae Symphoniae collection. Though its forces (only eight voices), length, and melodic development remain fairly circumspect, both his use of specified instrumentation (perhaps for the first time in history) and his pioneering use of dynamic markings show an overall concern for interaction between the choirs. Gabrieli was not, as once thought, the inventor of instrumental dynamics in this piece. Adriano Banchieri had used similar instructions in a 1596 echo canzona, and Vincenzo Capirola of Brescia instructed an instrumental player to play very softly in a transcription from much earlier in the sixteenth century. But Gabrieli deployed the markings pian[o] (softly) and forte (strongly) throughout this sonata, allowing the dynamics to distinguish the choirs from the larger tutti sections. In addition, he specifies the instrumentation of both choirs: a cornetto and three trombones for the first choir, and a violin (or viola) with three trombones for the second. Thus the two choirs are also distinguished by intentional contrasts in timbre. Throughout, the two choirs alternate passages between one another and passages with all voices sounding. The passages often retain nearly equivalent proportions (the opening two phrases, for instance, are almost exact in length), but most offer a response to, rather than a copy of, what came before. The overall progression is toward shorter phrases and more active counterpoint, building to a rather splendid climax; the harmonic language, however, never completely settles into expected cadential patterns.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 16:00:02 +0000
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