Giovanni Gabrieli - Magnificat a 14 / from the CD Monteverdi - The Other Vespers by I Fagiolini

Описание: Giovanni Gabrieli, first organist at St.Mark's Venice, died in 1612. Three years after his death (just one year after Monteverdi arrived in Venice), one of his pupils, Alvise Grani, put together a large collection of his unpublished sacred music called 'Symphoniae sacrae' containing 32 motets for six to nineteen parts.

This Magnificat is for three 'choirs' in the Venetian cori spezzati (split-choir) style.

1) In this repertoire, 'choir' simply implies 'group', not specifically singers, although the middle choir is designated 'cappella' which does mean 'singers only'. The choir on the left has a high tessitura (general range) and the choir on the right a low tessitura. Gabrieli's contemporary Michael Praetorius wrote of German practice of this type of music that a good way of doing it was to put a singer on the bottom of the high choir (to carry the text) and then instruments above, while putting a singer on the top of the low choir and instruments below. Praetorius was a long way away from Venice but this likely reflects at least a Venetian practice simply because the range of the very low and very high parts are outside any sort of comfortable vocal range.

2) Although it's tempting to imagine the three choirs split over large distances gaily tossing phrases between them, the reality is that for the musicians to work well together and feel the close conversational nature of the music, they need to be able to see and hear each other, which is not possible with the performers split in balconies and hidden behind organ screens. Paul McCreesh has commented similarly on this in his notes for 'Music for San Rocco' CD (Gabrieli Consort and Players).

However practice at St Marks itself did sometimes involve split choirs not able to see each other and being directed from the floor by the choir director, relaying the beat to the choir in organ loft 1, who then relayed the beat to organ loft 2 (whose performers could not see the director on the floor).

There's a fascinating letter to the Procurators from 1607 showing what happens when this goes wrong:

“Giovanni Croce, maestro, having communicated to the Procurators that it being necessary to perform music in the organ lofts at such times as the most Serene Prince and Signoria come to church, it is necessary that there be someone of ability who serves in the organ lofts to beat the time, as it is regulated by the maestro. And because in Giovanni Gabrieli’s loft there is Giovanni Bassano, head of the players, who on that side of the chancel is charged with this responsibility, and on the other side, maestro Croce is used to employ the singer Agostin who is absent without leave.”

So Croce is directing from the floor of the chancel, Gabrieli is up in one of the organ lofts, playing away with Bassano beating time next to time but over in the other organ loft, the regular time-beater had not showed up that Sunday morning (enjoyed the malvasie too much the night before) and the music suffered as a result.

And they were all called Giovanni. What larks!