Canzon Quarti Toni à 15

Hidden away in Gabrieli’s Sacrae Symphoniae of 1597, among forty-five vocal compositions, lie sixteen works that make up one of the first great monuments of instrumental ensemble music; fourteen canzoni and two sonatas that surpass any of their genre at that time, and that were only rarely matched in the following decades, most often by Gabrieli himself. Gabrieli must be credited with many firsts in regard to the development of the canzona and sonata: he was the first to write for more than eight parts, and first to deploy his forces polychorally. He was first to contrast polyphonic and homophonic writing, and duple and triple meter, within the same piece, and was a pioneer in the use of tone colour – and specified instrumentation – for dramatic musical effect. Egon Kenton, in his Life and Works of Giovanni Gabrieli (American Institute of Musicology, 1967) sees as well the seeds of the concerto grosso and the solo concerto in Gabrieli’s use of tutti and solo writing and his setting off of soloistic upper parts against frankly accompanimental lower parts. lt would not stretch the point to add that Gabrieli fleshed out his many innovations with musical materials of a high order, and that he handled his materials with consummate skill.