The Venice Connection

   Everyone has their own private version of Venice, even if they've never been there, but for a musician it has special associations, some historical, others much more recent.  Among the latter are, for example, Britten's last opera, Death in Venice, based on the Thomas Mann novella, and several works by Stravinsky that were premiered there - including Canticum Sacrum and his opera The Rake's Progress - and the composer himself lies buried in the unique island cemetery of San Michele.

   But in tonight's concert we celebrate a more distant piece of history. In the late 16th century the basilica of San Marco, with its famous musical traditions, attracted a series of brilliant organist-composers, who included the madrigalist Adrian Willaert, Cipriano de Rore, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Claudio Merulo, Andrea Gabrieli, his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli, Giovanni Croce, and Claudio Monteverdi. For the same reason, Venice was also the destination of numerous northern composers who wanted to learn the most modern style of the day; and of these the greatest was Heinrich Schütz.

   Setting aside the dazzling maturity of the Italian madrigal, the rise of solo declamation, and the development of opera  - all of which had their place in Venice, but also in other Italian cities of the time - it is the practice of cori spezzati which became particularly associated with Venice.  The expression means broken choirs, in the sense of breaking up the ensemble of performers into smaller groups or 'choirs' (instrumental as well as vocal) and distributing them in two or more positions in the building - thus creating a music which exploited space as well as time. This was not unique to Venice of course - Lassus in Munich made considerable use of this device as well - and it really can be traced back to the earliest traditions of psalmody chanted in alternation by two groups of singers. But in late 16th-century Venice it became a kind of house-style, reinforced by the opportunities provided by San Marco itself, with its numerous balconies and galleries.

   Among the techniques which were refined by the Venetians was the use of contrasting choirs, one of high voices, and one of low; the creation of echo effects; and varied textures of solo voice(s) with instruments answered by full choir. Some of these variations are specified by the composer, while in other circumstances it is the performer who must decide how best to deploy the forces he has available.   As we shall hear tonight, Giovanni Gabrieli also successfully adapted the methods of cori spezzati to the instrumental canzona, creating a truly instrumental idiom of composition.

   In the Spring of 1609, the young Schütz came to Venice and studied with Giovanni Gabrieli for four years (Gabrieli died in 1612). He published a book of Italian madrigals while he was still there, and then returned north to begin his long and illustrious career.  Schütz paid homage to the cori spezzati model most evidently in his Psalms of David of 1619  (which includes Herr unser Herrscher), and again at the end of his career in his Schwanengesang (including the Magnificat) published in 1671, when he was in his 86th year.

   Not all the works in tonight's concert use this cori spezzati technique. In order to provide some variation we shall also hear three pieces by Monteverdi which are altogether more lyrical in style. These include two settings of texts, each beginning  Zefiro torna and having very similar messages (the contrast between the happy arrival of Spring and the unhappy lover's wretchedness), but in quite distinct musical styles: one in the traditonal madrigal idiom of imitative polyphony sung by five voices in consort, and one in the newer virtuoso style (in this case, a tenor duet with continuo accompanment), of which Monteverdi was the supreme master.

Paul Hillier

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