Giovanni Gabrieli: Canzoni, Sonate e Motetti

2 Cornetti, 2 Violins, 6 Trombones, 2 Organs

Giovanni Gabrieli was without doubt the greatest composer of the Venetian high Renaissance. The cornettists and trombonists he had at his disposal were among the best to be found anywhere, and their virtuosity is clearly reflected in the music he wrote for them. While his sacred concerted music was more influential in the long run, it is the instrumental music he wrote for these players which probably reached the highest artistic level and has the greatest power to touch modern audiences.

Music for a Danish King

2 cornetti, 2 violins, 4 trombones, organ

Recently performed in Rosenborg Castle, summer palace of Christian IV.

From the time that Christian IV sent four of his musicians to Venice to study with Giovanni Gabrieli, his musical chapel had close ties to the Serenissima, as the Venetian Republic called itself. We play Venetian canzonas of Gabrieli and his contemporaries Giovanni Battista Grillo and Gioseffo Guami alongside motets and madrigals by Gabrieli’s outstanding Danish pupil Mogens Pedersøn and music of John Dowland.

Canzoni e Sonate alla corte dei Gonzaga

2 cornetti, 2 violins, 4 trombones, organ

Recently performed for the inauguration of the newly restored Antegnati organ in the basilica of Santa Barbara, Mantova.

Music by Gio. Gabrieli, Amante Franzoni, Ottavio Bargnani, Girolamo Cavazzoni, Francesco Rovigo, Gio. Battista Grillo, and others.

Effetti e Stravaganze: Extravagant and Quirky Music

2 cornetti, 3 trombones, organ

The birth in Florence around 1600 of a new monodic, vocal style concentrating on the accurate declamation of text and the passionate expression of sentiment, quickly led to a revolution in instrumental music as well. The traditional ensemble canzona gave way to more solistic and ostensibly more idiomatically instrumental forms, but in these new solo canzonas and concerted sonatas instrumentalists tried more than ever to imitate every expressive vocal trick of the seconda prattica. Alongside the expression of "affect", the new instrumental music frequently served as a field of experimentation for various fashionable "effects": imitation of natural sounds, echoes, exploitation of bizarre harmonies or rhythms, technical devices such as tremolos, etc. These effects reflected the new interest in idiomatic instrumental techniques, but they were stimulated as well by an aesthetic Zeitgeist which celebrated the new and frequently delighted in the bizarre, by which was meant the cleverly quirky or the daringly witty. In this program we present a cross section of the repertoire of a wind band around 1600: madrigals and motets, but also canzonas and sonatas of the expressive new style and pieces with special effects such as echoes, and imitations of bird calls. Music by Alessandro Orologio, Giuseppe Scarani, Nikolaus a Kempis, Gio. Battista Fontana, Samuel Scheidt, Giovanni Valentini, and others.