Giovanni Gabrieli – composer

Venetian musician inspired spread of the Baroque style

The tomb of Giovanni Gabrieli in the Church of
Santo Stefano in the San Marco district of Venice

Giovanni Gabrieli, composer and organist, died on this day in 1612 in Venice.

He had been a major influence behind the transition from Renaissance music to the Baroque style in Europe.

Born in Venice between 1554 and 1557, Giovanni grew up studying with his uncle, the composer Andrea Gabrieli, for whom he always had great respect.

He also went to Munich to study with the musicians at the court of Duke Albert V, which had a lasting influence on his composing style.

After his return to Venice he became principal organist at St Mark’s Basilica in 1585. Following the death of his uncle, he took the post of principal composer at St Mark’s as well and spent a lot of time editing his uncle’s music for publication, which would otherwise have been lost.

Listen to Gabrieli's Canzon XVI for 12 parts

He took the additional post of organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which was second only to St Mark’s in prestige at the time.

The English writer Thomas Coryat wrote about musical performances there in his travel memoirs.

The Scuola Grande di San Rocco (left) adjoins the
Church of San Rocco in Venice in the San Polo district

Composers from all over Europe came to Venice to study after the publication of Giovanni’s Sacred Symphonies (Sacrae Symphoniae) in 1597.

Using the acoustics of St Mark’s to full advantage, he wrote music for separated choirs, but specified which instruments were to be used and which choirs were to use soloists as well as full choir, in order to distinguish between the musical style of each. This was a new approach to orchestration.

Giovanni made his pupils study Madrigals as well as the Venetian style of music and they took back the early Baroque style to their own countries, which profoundly affected the course of music history.

In Germany, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach was founded on the early Baroque tradition, which had its roots in Venice.

Giovanni Gabrieli died as a result of complications with a kidney stone in 1612 and he is buried in the Church of Santo Stefano in Campo Santo Stefano in Venice.

Easy to see why the Basilica of St Mark is sometimes
known as the Chiesa d'Oro - the Church of Gold

Travel tip:

St Mark’s Basilica is the Cathedral Church of Venice and one of the best examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture in existence. Because of its opulent design and gold ground mosaics it became a symbol of Venetian wealth and power and has been nicknamed Chiesa d’Oro (Church of Gold). The spacious interior with its multiple choir lofts inspired the development of the Venetian polychoral style used by the Gabrielis, uncle and nephew, and Claudio Monteverdi.

Travel tip:

The Scuola Grande di San Rocco was established in 1478 by a group of wealthy Venetians next to the Church of San Rocco as a charitable institution to give money to the sick and needy and their families. Tintoretto decorated the walls and ceilings of the Scuola with a remarkable cycle of paintings in 1564. The Scuola is a few minutes walk from the San Tomà vaporetto stop on the Grand Canal.

(Photo of the tomb by Giovanni Dall'Orto)
(Photo of Scuola di San Rocco by MarkusMark  CC BY-SA)

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Claudio Monteverdi – composer

Baroque musician who gave us the first real opera

Bernardo Strozzi's 1630 portrait of Monteverdi

The composer and musician Claudio Monteverdi was baptised on this day in 1567 in Cremona in Lombardy.

Children were baptised soon after their birth in the 16th century so it is possible Monteverdi was born on 15 May or just before.

He was to become the most important developer of a new genre, the opera, and bring a more modern touch to church music.

Monteverdi studied under the maestro di cappella at the cathedral in Cremona and published several books of religious and secular music while still in his teens.

He managed to secure a position as a viola player at Vincenzo Gonzaga’s court in Mantua where he came into contact with some of the top musicians of the time. He went on to become master of music there in 1601
.
It was his first opera, L’Orfeo, written for the Gonzaga court, that really established him as a composer.

In the early 17th century, the intermedio, the music played between the acts of a play, was evolving into the form of a complete musical drama, or opera. Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo was the first fully developed example of this and is the earliest opera still being regularly staged.

It had its first performance in 1607 in Mantua. Two letters, both dated 23 February, 1607, refer to the opera due to be performed the next day in the Ducal Palace as part of the annual carnival in Mantua in Lombardy.

The frontispiece from Monteverdi's
score of L'Orfeo, performed in 1607

In one of them a palace official writes: ‘… it should be most unusual as all the actors are to sing their parts.’

Francesco Gonzaga, the brother of the Duke, wrote in a letter dated 1 March, 1607 that the performance had been to the ‘great satisfaction of all who heard it.’

L’Orfeo, or La favola d’Orfeo as it is sometimes called, is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus. It tells the story of the hero’s descent to Hades and his unsuccessful attempt to bring his dead bride, Eurydice, back to the living world.

The libretto had been written by Alessandro Striggio and the singers were accompanied by an orchestra of about 40 musical instruments.

It was staged again in Mantua and then possibly in other towns in Italy before the score was published by Monteverdi in 1609. There is evidence that the opera was also performed in Salzburg, Geneva and Paris from 1614 onwards.

But after Monteverdi’s death in 1643 the opera was forgotten until a 19th century revival led to other performances.

While it is recognised that L'Orfeo is not the first opera, it is the earliest opera that is still regularly performed in theatres today and it established the basic form that European opera was to take for the next 300 years.

A performance in Paris in 1911 gave L’Orfeo particular prominence and it has since been regularly included in the repertoire of opera houses.

Nowadays, Monteverdi is acknowledged as the first great opera composer.

The Duomo in Cremona, where
Monteverdi studied music

Travel tip:

Cremona’s Duomo, where Monteverdi studied music, is an important example of Romanesque architecture dating from the 12th century. The facade with its large rose window was probably added in the 13th century. Linked to the cathedral by a loggia, is the Torrazzo, the tallest bell tower in Italy and the third largest in the world, standing at 112.7 metres. Work began on the Torrazzo in the eighth century and the spire was completed in 1309. 


Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric old city, to the south east of Milan, famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family, which has a famous room, Camera degli Sposi, decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna.  It is not known for certain, but the premiere of L’Orfeo may have taken place in the Galleria dei Fiumi, which has the dimensions to accommodate a stage and orchestra and space for a small audience.


More reading:

The story of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo

Luca Marenzio, the madrigal writer who influenced Monteverdi

How court musician Jacopo Peri wrote the first 'opera'

Also on this day:

1902: The birth of band leader Pippo Barzizza

1936: The birth of actress and opera singer Anna Maria Alberghetti





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