Editing Giovanni Gabrieli (section)

==Music and style==
[[File:Gabrieli Canzon Septimi Toni 01.png|thumb|Canzon Septimi Toni No. 2, a piece for two antiphonal choirs of four instruments each; original instruments unspecified,<ref>{{cite book|title=Canzon septimi toni no. 2: Sacrae symphoniae, Venice, 1597, for eight-part brass choir|date=6 June 2018|oclc = 9514606}}</ref> but often played with eight [[trombones]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://music.indiana.edu/departments/academic/brass/areas/trombone/trombone_choir.shtml|title=Trombone Area: Brass: Academic Departments: Departments, Offices & Services: Jacobs School of Music: Indiana University Bloomington|first=IU Office of Creative Services, iuweb @|last=indiana.edu|website=music.indiana.edu}}</ref> Synthesized sound:[[File:Gabrieli Canzon Septimi Toni 02.wav]]]]
Though Gabrieli composed in many of the forms current at the time, he preferred sacred vocal and instrumental music. All of his secular vocal music was relatively early in his career; he never wrote lighter forms, such as dances; and later he concentrated on sacred vocal and instrumental music that exploited sonority for maximum effect.<ref>Selfridge-Field, p. 81</ref> Among the innovations credited to him – and while he was not always the first to use them, he was the most famous of his period to do so – were dynamics; specifically notated instrumentation (as in the famous ''[[Sonata pian' e forte]]''); and massive forces arrayed in multiple, spatially separated groups, an idea which was to be the genesis of the Baroque [[concertato]] style, and which spread quickly to northern Europe, both by the report of visitors to Venice and by Gabrieli's students, who included [[Hans Leo Hassler]] and [[Heinrich Schütz]].<ref>Grout, pp. 289–291</ref><ref>Selfridge-Field, p. 81, p. 99</ref>

Like composers before and after him, he would use the unusual layout of the San Marco church, with its two choir lofts facing each other, to create striking spatial effects. Most of his pieces are written so that a [[choir]] or instrumental group will first be heard on one side, followed by a response from the musicians on the other side; often there was a third group situated on a stage near the main altar in the centre of the church.<ref>Ongaro et al., ''Venice'', Grove online</ref> While this [[polychoral]] style had been extant for decades ([[Adrian Willaert]] may have made use of it first, at least in Venice), Gabrieli pioneered the use of carefully specified groups of instruments and singers, with precise directions for instrumentation, and in more than two groups. The acoustics were and are such in the church that instruments, correctly positioned, could be heard with perfect clarity at distant points. Thus instrumentation which looks strange on paper, for instance, a single string player set against a large group of brass instruments, can be made to sound, in San Marco, in perfect balance. A fine example of these techniques can be seen in the scoring of [[In Ecclesiis]].

Gabrieli's first motets were published alongside his uncle Andrea's compositions in his 1587 volume of ''Concerti''. These pieces show much influence of his uncle's style in the use of dialogue and echo effects.<ref name="auto1">Arnold, Grove (1980)</ref> There are low and high choirs and the difference between their pitches is marked by the use of instrumental accompaniment. The motets published in Giovanni's 1597 ''Sacrae Symphoniae'' seem to move away from this technique of close antiphony towards a model in which musical material is not simply echoed, but developed by successive choral entries. Some motets, such as ''Omnes Gentes'' developed the model almost to its limits. In these motets, instruments are an integral part of the performance, and only the choirs marked "Capella" are to be performed by singers for each part.<ref name="auto1"/>

There seems to be a distinct change in Gabrieli's style after 1605, the year of publication of [[Monteverdi]]'s ''Quinto libro di madrigali'', and Gabrieli's compositions are in a much more [[Homophony|homophonic]] style as a result. There are sections purely for instruments – called "Sinfonia" – and small sections for soloists singing florid lines, accompanied simply by a [[basso continuo]]. "Alleluia" refrains provide refrains within the structure, forming rondo patterns in the motets, with close dialogue between choirs and soloists. In particular, one of his best-known pieces, ''[[In Ecclesiis]]'', is a showcase of such polychoral techniques, making use of four separate groups of instrumental and singing performers, underpinned by the omnipresent organ and [[Basso continuo#Basso continuo|continuo]].