Andrea Gabrieli

fully for the post of organist at St. Marks.[1]

In 1562 he went to Germany, where he visited Frankfurt
am Main and Munich; while there he met and became
friends with Orlande de Lassus, one of the most wideranging composers of the entire Renaissance, who wrote
secular songs in French, Italian, and German, as well
as abundant Latin sacred music. This musical relationship proved immensely fruitful for both composers: while
Lassus certainly learned from the Venetian, Gabrieli took
back to Venice numerous ideas he learned while visiting
Lassus in Bavaria, and within a short time was composing
in most of the current idioms, including one which Lassus
entirely avoided: purely instrumental music.[2]
In 1566 Gabrieli was chosen for the post of organist at
St. Marks, one of the most prestigious musical posts
in northern Italy; he retained this position for the rest
of his life. Around this time he acquired, and maintained, a reputation as one of the nest current composers. Working in the unique acoustical space of St.
Marks, he was able to develop his unique, grand ceremonial style, which was enormously inuential in the development of the polychoral style and the concertato idiom,
which partially dened the beginning of the Baroque era
in music.[3]
His duties at St. Marks clearly included composition,
for he wrote a great deal of music for ceremonial aairs,
some of considerable historical interest. He provided the
music for the festivities accompanying the celebration of
the victory over the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto (1571);
he also composed music for the visit of several princes
from Japan (1585).

Andrea Gabrieli

Andrea Gabrieli (1532/1533[1] August 30, 1585)

was an Italian[1] composer and organist of the late
Renaissance. The uncle of the somewhat more famous Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the rst internationally
renowned member of the Venetian School of composers,
and was extremely inuential in spreading the Venetian Late in his career he also became famous as a teacher.
style in Italy as well as in Germany.
Prominent among his students were his nephew Giovanni
Gabrieli; the music theorist Lodovico Zacconi; Hans Leo
Hassler, who carried the concertato style to Germany; and
many others.

Life

The date and circumstances of his death were not known

until the 1980s, when the register containing his death
date was found. Dated August 30, 1585, it includes the
notation that he was about 52 years old"; his approximate
birth date has been inferred from this.[1] His position at
St. Marks was not lled until the end of 1586, and a
large amount of his music was published posthumously
in 1587.

Details on Gabrielis early life are sketchy. He was probably a native of Venice, most likely the parish of S.
Geremia. He may have been a pupil of Adrian Willaert
at St. Marks in Venice at an early age. There is some evidence that he may have spent some time in Verona in the
early 1550s, due to a connection with Vincenzo Ruo,
who worked there as maestro di cappella Ruo published one of Gabrielis madrigals in 1554, and Gabrieli
also wrote some music for a Veronese academy. Gabrieli
is known to have been organist in Cannaregio between
1555 and 1557, at which time he competed unsuccess1

Works

Gabrieli was a prolic and versatile composer, and wrote

a large amount of music, including sacred and secular vocal music, music for mixed groups of voices and instruments, and purely instrumental music, much of it for the
huge, resonant space of St. Marks. His works include
over a hundred motets and madrigals, as well as a smaller
number of instrumental works.
His early style is indebted to Cipriano de Rore, and his
madrigals are representative of mid-century trends. Even
in his earliest music, however, he had a liking for homophonic textures at climaxes, foreshadowing the grand
style of his later years. After his meeting with Lassus in
1562, his style changed considerably, and the Netherlander became the strongest inuence on him.
Once Gabrieli was working at St. Marks, he began to
turn away from the Franco-Flemish contrapuntal style
which had dominated the music of the 16th century, instead exploiting the sonorous grandeur of mixed instrumental and vocal groups playing antiphonally in the great
basilica. His music of this time uses repetition of phrases
with dierent combinations of voices at dierent pitch
levels; although instrumentation is not specically indicated, it can be inferred; he carefully contrasts texture
and sonority to shape sections of music in a way which
was unique, and which dened the Venetian style for the
next generation.
Not everything Gabrieli wrote was for St. Marks, though.
He provided the music for one of the earliest revivals of
an ancient Greek drama in Italian translation: Oedipus
tyrannus, by Sophocles, for which he wrote the music for
the choruses, setting separate lines for dierent groupings
of voices. It was produced at Vicenza in 1585.
Evidently Andrea Gabrieli was reluctant to publish much
of his own music, and his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli published much of it after his uncles death.

3
4

EDITIONS

Denis Arnold, Giovanni Gabrieli and the Music of

the Venetian High Renaissance. London, Oxford
University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-19-315232-0
Giuseppe Clericetti, Le composizioni per strumenti a tastiera di Andrea Gabrieli. Catalogo, bibliograa, varianti in L'Organo XXV-XXVI (19871988), 9-62.
Giuseppe Clericetti, Martin menoit son pourceau
au march: due intavolature di Andrea Gabrieli in
Musicus Perfectus. Studi in onore di Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini nella ricorrenza del LXV. compleanno, Bologna 1995, Ptron, 147-183.
Giuseppe Clericetti, Una terra di nessuno: le tre
Messe per organo di Andrea Gabrieli in Fiori Musicologici. Studi in onore di Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini nella ricorrenza del suo LXX. compleanno,
Bologna 2001, Ptron, 139-170.
Andrea Gabrieli, Cessate cantus. Lettere 1557-1585,
a cura di Giuseppe Clericetti, Varese, Zecchini,
2014. ISBN 978-88-6540-100-2

5 Editions
Sacrae Cantiones, Venezia, Angelo Gardano 1565,
modern edition Verlag C. Hous, Ammerbuch
(Germany) 2013, ISMN 979-0-50248-001-1
Il Primo Libro di Madrigali a cinque voci, Venezia,
Angelo Gardano 1566, modern edition Ricordi, Milano 2008
Il Secondo Libro di Madrigali a cinque voci, Venezia,
Angelo Gardano 1570, modern edition Ricordi, Milano 1996

Media

Primus Liber Missarum, Venezia, Angelo Gardano

1572, modern edition Verlag C. Hous, Ammerbuch 2014, ISMN 979-0-50248-000-4.

References

Libro Primo de Madrigali a tre voci, modern edition

Ricordi, Milano 1999

David Bryant: Andrea Gabrieli, Grove Music

Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed July 15, 2007),
(subscription access)

Ecclesiasticum Cantionum quatuor vocum omnibus

sanctorum solemnitatibus deservientium.
Liber
primus, Venezia, Angelo Gardano 1576, modern
edition Ricordi, Milano 2001

Denis Arnold, Andrea Gabrieli, in The New Grove

Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley
Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd.,
1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2

Opere edite in vita: Psalmi Davidici, qui poenitentiales nuncupantur, tum omnis generis instrumentorum, Venezia, Angelo Gardano 1583, modern edition Ricordi, Milano 1988

Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New

York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-39309530-4

Opera postume. Concerti di Andrea et di Gio.

Gabrieli, Venezia, Angelo Gardano 1587, modern
edition Ricordi, Milano 1989

3
Chori in musica composti sopra li chori della tragedia di Edippo Tiranno: recitati in Vicenza l'anno
MDLXXXV, Venezia, Angelo Gardano 1588, modern edition Ricordi, Milano 1995
Il terzo Libro de Madrigali a cinque voci, con alcuni di Giovanni Gabrieli, Venezia, Angelo Gardano
1589, modern edition Ricordi, Milano 2012
Madrigali et ricecari a quattro voci, Venezia, Angelo
Gardano 1589/90, modern edition Ricordi, Milano
2012
Le composizioni vocali di Andrea Gabrieli in intavolature per tastiera e liuto, modern edition Ricordi, Milano 1993/1999
Complete Keyboard Works (edited by Giuseppe
Clericetti), 6 Vol. + Critical Report, Wien 1997-99,
Doblinger (Diletto Musicale 1141-46, 09671).

Notes

[1] Bryant, Grove online

[2] Arnold, Giovanni Gabrieli and the Music of the Venetian
High Renaissance, p. 4. Note: while this book is mainly
on Giovanni, Andreas nephew, the initial chapter discusses in detail several of the other Venetian School composers, including Andrea.
[3] Arnold, Grove online

External links
Free scores by Andrea Gabrieli at the International
Music Score Library Project

Free scores by Andrea Gabrieli in the Choral Public

Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Andrea Gabrieli Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea%20Gabrieli?oldid=628517538 Contributors: Magnus Manske, Camembert, Bemoeial, Viajero, Hyacinth, Robbot, Wikibot, Everyking, Leonard Vertighel, Antandrus, Vanished user 1234567890, Marcus2,
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8.2

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8.3

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