Search - Claudio Monteverdi, Adrian Willaert, Orlande de Lassus :: Venice Music

It is amazing to think of music being made in stereo in the 16th century, but that is what was happening in Venice. The dramatic acoustics of St. Mark's Cathedral, one of the architectural wonders of Venice, gave Venetian composers the opportunity to create a type of space music in which singers were placed in different galleries in the church, and instructed to perform antiphonally - in stereo, if you like - with one group echoing or answering another. From haunting choral prayers to outrageously colorful and joyous songs, Venice Music includes numerous examples of this remarkable style, and presents a musical picture of a city whose artistic life reached a level rarely matched by the greatest cities of the world.Some of the greatest composers of the 16th and 17th centuries are included in Venice Music: Adriaan Willaert, Andrea Gabrieli, and Giovanni Gabrieli brought the antiphonal style to a remarkable pinnacle. In fact, in Giovanni Gabrieli's works, his use of multiple choirs anticipated the surround-sound effect of modern movie theaters by four hundred years! Venice maintained strong ties to Germany as well, and the "prince of music", Orlando di Lasso, was closely linked to Venetian music from his Munich base. Germany's first native composer of international stature, Heinrich Schuetz, is similarly connected with the Venice tradition. Venice Music also includes two of the pivotal composers of the 18th century, whose work kept Venice at the forefront of European music long after the echo style had died out. Claudio Monteverdi and Antonio Vivaldi remain two of the cornerstones of classical music; Monteverdi is represented by some of his grand and exuberant Vespers, and two of Vivaldi's delightful concertos are included. Like its painters, Venice's musicians developed a style that was immediately identifiable; and like their artistic counterparts, the Venetian composers produced some of the most striking, dramatic, and colorful works in all of Europe. Venice Music presents classic recordings of some of the most profound and most extravagant contributions made by this single city-state, which helped shape the development of what we now accept as the great legacy of Western music.