Giovanni Gabrieli: Dialoghi Musicali

Giovanni Gabrieli is one of these Venetian musicians who appears in all music history surveys, but who is actually much less well known than he deserves to be. Modern brass ensembles sometimes perform some of his instrumental pieces in odd transpositions, and motets in concertato style end up in anthologies to illustrate the combination of cori spezzati sacred music. Yet, he was one of the major organists of his time, who wrote in virtually all common vocal and instrumental musical genres, introduced new

compositional techniques, worked in the most important Venetian sacred insti- tutions after a sojourn in Bavaria, and trained some of the most important German and Italian

composers of the early 17th century.

Giovanni Gabrieli's complete compositional output is preserved in both printed and manuscripts collections, and consists of about 250 compositions between madrigals (mostly in anthologies), motets, instrumental canzonas and sonatas, and organ pieces (Intonazio- ni, Ricercari, Canzoni, Toccate, Fughe, and Fantasie). The printed collections of instrumental music that became best known were the Canzoni per sonare con ogni sorte di stromenti (Venice, 1608), and the posthumous Canzoni e Sonate (Venice 1615).