The Music Salon: Today's Listening

Monday, April 25, 2022

Today's Listening

San Marco Basilica, Venice

I'm reading a bit of Richard Taruskin's magisterial Oxford History of Western Music every morning and I'm nearing the end of volume one. Today the discussion was on the magnificent multi-choral, multi-instrumental "sacred symphonies" of Giovanni Gabrieli, some of the first genuinely "orchestrated" music in history. This was written especially to be performed in the San Marco Basilica in Venice with its multiple choir stalls. This piece dates from around 1608:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kZ_Ld9-wH4

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