G is for Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli

This was a tough choice. Two VERY close 2nds were Gershwin and Grofe, but I figured I'd done a lot of orchestral, 20th century, American composers so far and it was time for a bit of a change. Besides, I do really like Gabrieli.

That said, it's a bit of a brass player thing. I hope everyone is able to enjoy it as we do, but I don't know if that happens. The great thing about Gabrieli is that he wrote a lot of music for brass players (doesn't happen often) and he wrote music the way we like to play it (happens even less). Sure it's often chop killing, but it is absolutely glorious. It is brass music written for the way brass instruments were designed to be played. Lots of extreme dynamics, linear phrases, and powerful chords. It's pre-tonal music meaning that the music is less concerned with any harmonic progressions than it is with the interplay between the individual lines. There is a lot of counterpoint going on in Gabrieli's pieces and he also used a lot of antiphonal techniques (spatially separated choirs) to heighten this effect in many of his pieces. So while there are melodies, the general effect you get is the "wash of sound". But unlike the more ambient music modern composers like philip glass (he doesn't even deserve to have his name capitalized) there's actually interesting things going on during the general effect.

It's also music of the church to a certain degree. I say to a certain degree because most of the music we still have today from his time period (~1550-1612) is here today because the church has held on to it. Even though the bulk of what we still have is sacred, it appears that he didn't write much in the secular realm anyway. One could argue that this music really wasn't that sacred and that Gabrieli was probably just trying to pay the bills, but I'm not convinced. Life in Italy during Gabrieli's life was still highly influenced by the church. That's just the way it was. So while Gabrieli was hired as the organist/composer of these churches and by writing these pieces he was just doing his job, that doesn't mean he didn't consider these works offerings to God. They were written for the church and I really wish they were still played a bit more often in the church. It seems easy to say this is the kind of music we'll look forward to in heaven, but I just know it's only the faintest shadow of the glory that awaits.

Again, no vids that really does justice to the majesty of Gabrieli's music.