A Venetian Coronation 1595

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Music reviews of A Venetian Coronation 1595

Music Review: My favourite Gabrieli Consort/Players recording
Rating: 5 Stars

The ceremony is presented with the appropriate gravity. Perhpas the choice of polychoral Mass-Settings by Andrea Gabrieli highlights this. They are simpler and more austere than the slightly later works of Giovanni Gabrieli. However, for the pure thrill of sonorous majesty listen to the closing (third) section of the Kyrie.

The instrumentalists are on top form, with the timbre of the sackbutts particularly well-shaped in this recording. As in the Kyrie, the vast closing motet "Omnes Gentes" features some cracking sonorities from them (especially some particularly flatulent bass notes near the end!). This track is, in my opinion, the single best performance of any piece in this repertoire comitted to record, and I have returned to it again and again with never diminishing joy - the balance of static sonority and crisply articulated rhythms, chamber-like intimacy and grandiose rhetoric, is perfectly handled by both performers and recording engineers. Like Mahler 8, only shorter I suppose.

To pick diamonds from amongst pearls may be unneccessary, but another unique joy is the new arrangement for two organs of the motet by Andrea Gabrieli "Benedictus Dominus Deus". This is given a glittering performance and imitates the improvisations of the two basilica organists written about by contemporaries but never comitted to manuscript.

The balance between chant and polyphony is not going to bore anyone in this recording and the small amounts of plainchant are sung with great shaping and sensitivity.

If you want a recording of this repertoire, don't buy the San Rocco recording (I find the acoustic too dry and the performances a little too "intimate" apart from in the very large-scale works), get this one or the Easter Mass at San Marco by the same performers.

Why the Counter Reformation failed with such music behind it will remain a mystery.

Description of A Venetian Coronation 1595

Classical CDs

• Music > Styles
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