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Ceremonial Music in Venice at the Time of the Gabrielis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1955

Denis Arnold
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Extract

Church and state always went hand in hand in the ceremonial of the Venetian Republic. The Church's reasons for using ritual are well known and require no discussion; but in Venice, the needs of the State were just as great. In any republic having an elected Head of State, the problem of continuity demands more than usual care, and ceremonial helps always to focus the attention not so much on the individuals holding office, as on the meaning of the office itself. The processions and festivals celebrated with great sumptuousness helped to make Venetians continually aware of the Republic's own past and present greatness.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 82 , 1955 , pp. 47 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1955

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References

1 Francesco Sansovino, Venetia cittd nobilissima et singolare, Venice, 1663, pp. 492–3.Google Scholar

2 Sansovino, op. cit Book XII provides a good contemporary account of the principal ceremonies. A summary, mainly based on this, will be found in C. Boito, The Basilica of St Mark, translated by W. Scott, Venice, 1888.Google Scholar

3 Richard Lassels, The Voyage of Italy, Paris, 1670, pp. 412–14.Google Scholar

4 These figures are given by Rovetta in a note to the reader contained in his Salmi Concertati, Venice, 1626.Google Scholar

5 Thomas Coryat, visiting Venice in 1608, saw about twenty musicians employed in the Scuola di San Rocco on the day of the company's patron saint; but probably some of these would be hired for the occasion from among the musicians of St Mark's.Google Scholar

6 For a discussion of the emergence of the double choir style in the sixteenth century, see Hertzmann, Erich, ‘Zur Frage der Mehrchörigkeit in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, ZMW, XII (1929–30); and Hermann Zenck, ‘Adrian Willaert's Salmi Spezzati’, Die Musikforschung, II (1949).Google Scholar

7 Giovanni d'Alessi, ‘Precursors of Adriano Willaert in the Practice of Coro Spezzato’; Journal of the American Musicological Society, V (1950), pp. 187 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Contained in Andrea Gabrieli, Musica di chiesa da cinque a sedici voci, edited by G. d'Alessi, Milan, 1942.Google Scholar

9 See Praetorius, Michael, Syntagma Musician, Wolfenbüttel, 1614, etc., vol. III, p. 113 onwards. In partbooks of the Concerti of 1587 in the possession of the Conservatorio G. B. Martini at Bologna, two motets are marked with the names of the instruments to be used. Although these orchestrations do not entirely agree with the methods of Praetorius, especially in the way that wind and stringed instruments are mixed within the choirs, it is clear that solo voices were used.Google Scholar

10 Denis Arnold, ‘Giovanni Croce and the Concertato Style’, The Musical Quarterly, XXXIX (1953), pp. 37 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar