Luogo e data di registrazione		Bürgerbräu, München (Germania) - gennaio 1973
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Johann Nikolaus Matthes
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 063-30 112 - (1 lp) - durata 45' 21" - (p) 1973 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - CDM 7 634449 2 - (1 cd) - durata 45' 21" - (c) 1991 - ADD
	Edition CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26479 2 - (1 cd) - durata 45' 21" - (c) 2000 - ADD
	Note		-

A visitor to Venice in 1608, hearing polychoral music for the first time, felt he was “transported to the third heaven, like St. Paul.” At about the same date, the secretary of the Queen of France reported that “the church was filled with magnificent harmony at a concert of vocal and instrumental music given by the finest local musicians, mainly on six portable organs, also on the excellent main organ, on trumpets and bassoons, oboes, viols, violoni, lutes, cornets, recorders and flutes.” Many North Italian composers had abandoned the severe contrapuntal style in favour of a more homophonic and sonorous music. Gioseffo Zarlino, the distinguished director of music at San Marco from 1565 to 1590, felt constrained to refer the traditionalists (who were mainly to be found among the theoreticians) to the convincing results produced in practice. He points out the characteristics and virtues of the new style, and speaks of the grouping of two or more choirs: “Each choir is divided into four or more parts. First one choir will sing and then another, or they will alternate; and occasionally they all sing together, and this is highly effective." The most striking feature of polychoral music is its sound, which as it were divides up the space and spans it at the same time. The changed dimensions of the Copernican universe, and the contrasting of infinity and human limitations by theologians and philosophers, had introduced new concepts of space. The opening-out of the visible and invisible world also found expression in the arts. Painters used perspective and its effect on the eye of the viewer. Architects brought the various parts of a large space into relationship with each other, and proportion and function played an essential role. And the composers produced an entirely new aural experience by positioning groups of players and singers at different points. Heinrich Besseler (in "Musik und Raum," 1928) describes the resultant sonority as "a reaching-out of word and sound across a vast and superhuman space." It was the task of the director of music to produce a balance of sound between singers and players and an audible contrast between the various groups, and quite often itwas also up to him to divide up the score between different choirs. The composer always indicated that his work was to be split up amongst a certain number of choirs. But it was left entirely to the performers to decide how big each was to be and how the vocal and instrumental parts were to be assigned. The contrasting of large and small choirs or choirs of the same size, of soli and tutti, of voice and instruments either together or separately, of light and shade, loud and soft, near and far - all this produced a brilliant variety of sound. There was such a degree of freedom that, for example, “in the event of a lack of sopranos and a superfluity of tenors,” the latter could take over the part of the former (Giovanni Ghizzolo, 1619). The exchanging of parts was permitted, and each choir could be subdivided - providing there were enough partbooks to go round. Soloists - whether vocal or instrumental - could take over one part and the continuo instruments would play the others. In this recording much use is made of these and many other possibilities. From 1565 on, instrumentalists were a permanent part of the choir of San Marco. The development of independent instrumental pieces did not at first mean that they were composed in a style appropriate to the particular instruments. Such works could be played at will “cum omnis generis instrumentis.” In this recording there are pieces played by families of instruments and others by mixed groups; solo instruments are set off one against the other; strings and wind are divided; keyboard instruments used as an independent choir. The fountainhead of polychoral music was Venice. Around the year 1600, numerous North Italian and foreign musicians were studying there. Heinrich Schütz, Hans Leo Hassler, Gregor Aichinger, Giovanni Battista Grillo and many others came “to visit and listen to that paragon of all perfect music and jewel of Italy, Giovanni Gabrieli” (Christoph Klemsee, 1613). Before that date, the personal friendship between Andrea Gabrieli and Orlando Lasso (22 years his junior) had been the cause of the Venetian polychoral style becoming known north of the Alps; and after the two composers had made a journey together and Lasso had paid several visits to Venice, the composer to the Munich court adopted the “Venetian manner" wholeheartedly. Hans-Martin Linde Translation by David Potter
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"