Luogo e data di registrazione		Kirche, Séon (Svizzera) - 9-13 ottobre 1978
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Johann-Nikolaus Matthes
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 065-45 646 - (1 lp) - durata 56' 06" - (p) 1979 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - CDM 7 63141 2 - (1 cd) - durata 56' 06" - (c) 1989 - ADD
	Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26521 2 - (1 cd) - durata 56' 04" - (c) 2000 - ADD
	Note		-

THE INSTRUMENTAL CANZONA ln the sixteenth century the main church of Venice, the basilica of St Mark’s, had two organists. Among the famous musicians who held these posts were Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1553/56-1612) and Gioseffo Guami (c. 1540-1611). While the Venetian Gabrieli studied with his uncle, Andrea, Guami was a pupil of Adrian Willaert in Venice. As young musicians, both spent a few years (up to 1579) at the Munich court chapel under Orlando di Lasso. Gabrieli was organist of St Mark’s for over 20 years from 1584; in 1588-91 he served alongside Guami, who then went back to his home town of Lucca. Nevertheless, Guami’s Partidura per sonare delle canzonette was published in Venice in 1601. Of course, both organists wrote not only for the organ: their successive publications contain examples of all the important genres of the time, mainly motets and madrigals but also an increasing number of works for instrumental ensembles, in particular in the most modern form, the canzona. In the anthology of 36 canzonas “for every kind of instrument” published by Alessandro Raveri in 1608 in Venice, Gabrieli and Guami are equally represented. However, Gabrieli is undoubtedly the superior composer, and the standards he set were promulgated throughout Italy by his German pupils Aichinger, Hassler, and Schütz. As the character and forms of instrumental music changed and were developed (particularly by Gabrieli), the way was paved for the structural and tonal transformations that led from the Renaissance to the early Baroque. The Renaissance ideal of independent partwriting according to the rules of polyphony still obtained even in instrumental forms in the mid-sixteenth century. If vocal and instrumental parts still seemed to be interchangeable in performance, they nonetheless now had their own distinct character. The sixteenth century saw the emancipation of instrumental music: title-page indications that pieces could be sung or played disappeared as purely instrumental forms developed. There is still no individual idiom for most instruments, and indications of instrumentation are relatively rare: in general the name of a part gives its register, and the choice of instrumentation is left to the interpreter. This freedom offered numerous possibilities in view of the rich variety of instruments available. While at the end of the Middle Ages instruments of different kinds (blown, bowed, plucked) readily played together, the sixteenth century favoured the blended sound of consorts of matching instruments. Thus SATB families of the basic instrumental types developed. Among them were the recorder and the increasingly important viol. Alto, tenor and bass instruments (Pommer) completed the shawn family, while the nimble cornett became the top member of the trombone family. The development of independent instrumental ensemble music took place above all in Italy, and primarily through the Venetians Willaert and Buus. The lack of a text or a given cantus firmus is compensated for by the structural use of counterpoint. The present ricercare by Giovanni Gabrieli (from a source manuscript) has as its theme an abstract sequence of notes, re-fa-mi-do (D-F-E-C), whose elaborate treatment through several fugal sections includes inversion and diminution. From the 1570s in Italy the “academic” ricercare was largely superseded by the canzona. This new instrumental form derived from the French chanson and was at first called the canzona alla francese per sonare. The characteristic even and pointed declamatory rhythms of the chanson had quickly been seen as being especially suited to instrumental performance. The typical opening dactyl rhythm continues to be found in Gabrieli's late canzonas. Janequin’s Chanson La Bataille (1530) is especially famous for its programmatic depiction of a battle. Numerous battle compositions, including those by Guami, take over features from it, among them regular rhythmic patterns, triadic “trumpet-call” motifs and agitated, interweaving part-writing. The pleasing style of the lively chanson made it popular throughout Europe in numerous instrumental arrangements, particularly for lute and for keyboard. Andrea Gabrieli's canzona on Qui la dira (from his Canzoni alla francese per sonar sopra istromenti da tasti of 1605) is one of numerous instrumental versions of this chanson. Gabrieli does not merely adapt the chanson for his instrument, but rather paraphrases it by taking its motifs as the basis for longer imitative sections and decorating the material with ornamentation idiomatic to the keyboard. Such procedures gave the instrumental canzona its own characteristics. From such arrangements finally sprang the free ensemble canzona, which was newly composed rather than being based on a pre-existing composition. Popular with composers in northern Italy around 1600, among them Banchieri, Canale, G. D. Rognoni and Massaino, it allowed fullest scope for their inventiveness, since the absence of schematic forms or rules free rein to invention and innovation. This diversity is a particular feature of Giovanni Gabrieli`s canzonas. In clearly articulated sections, passages of ricercare-style imitative writing and chordal, homophonic passages follow each other, the metre varies between common time and dancing triple-time, sections are repeated. This richness of alternation, rhythm, tempo and phrasing reflected the new Baroque striving for contrast. The open form offered full scope for individuality too, as may be seen from the character titles in Guami's 1601 collection: La Cromatica, for instance, uses devices from the contemporary dramatic madrigal. The canzona offered many possibilities for new instrumental effects, and the individual parts soon became idiomatically instrumental, with leaps and figures quite untypical of vocal writing. Likewise such concertante features as virtuoso passages for single solo instruments and the use of contrasting instrumental colours appeared, and the number of parts increased. In 1597 Gabrieli took the number of parts in one self-contained instrumental “choir” to ten. This expansion of texture made multiple imitation of a motif possible, while at the same time the alternating of different combinations of instruments resulted in varying gradations of sound and also in an almost block-like density. This led increasingly to a texture in which the melodic top part and harmonically related bass played the leading role. Most editions therefore add an accompanying figured bass.The slow speed of harmonic rhythm also contributes to the expansiveness of sound. Although Gabrieli still specified the ecclesiastical modes, his harmony approaches the major-minor concept of modern tonality. Gabrieli’s 36 canzonas, published between 1597 and 1615, are already more diverse in polyphonic technique than Guami’s 26 works. Just in the standard forces of one or two fourpart choirs, to which Guami limits himself, Gabrieli offers far more variety. The ten parts of the canzonas heard here form one instrumental group, but in another canzona Gabrieli separates the instruments into two groups which (he still calls “choirs"). The double choirs were partly suggested bythe two organs of St. Mark's, but more particularly by the north Italian chori spezzati tradition of psalm-singing. The increasing role of instruments and the establishing of purely instrumental forms resulted in splendid canzonas for several choirs. Part 1 of Guami’s Canzona XXIV shows the basic principle particularly clearly. A closed thematic phrase is stated by one choir and repeated identically by the other. This simple alternation is developed into a dynamic form by the interweaving of phrases, overlapping of instrumental groups and more powerful recapitulation in the tutti. The other extreme is seen in the eight-part Canzona XXVII (1608) by Gabrieli,which is unique in its complexity. The motivic imitation in the upper parts and the dovetailing of the choirs is so close and dense that only at one point is the double-choir layout clearly audible. Furthermore, an ostinato-like cadence formula in the bass is heard 32 times through this unusual piece. There are two important factors in this early Baroque concept of music: tonal colour and spatial effect. While special tone colour is achieved in Gabrieli’s ten-part canzonas by the effect of strings and wind playing together, tonal colours are contrasted in the double-choir canzonas of Guami. The internal musical spatial effects in Gabrieli’s use of the upper and lower registers in his ten-part pieces takes on a spatial aspect with the double choir. The placing of individual instrumental ensembles in separate places creates a new effect for the listener, who is enveloped in sound that fluctuates in effect and structure. With their balconies, galleries and podia, Baroque churches - in particular St Mark’s - provided the architectural stimuli and conditions for the realisation of this spatial art: canzonas, though instrumental, were not exclusively secular. Contemporary accounts tell us that canzonas were favourite pieces for festive public occasions, and they originated as Staatsmusik in many cases, though they were also played to entertain in the palaces of the nobility and of patricians. State receptions, remembrance days and, celebrations of victory were also invariably accompanied by ecclesiastical celebrations rich in pageantry. The inclusion of canzonas together with festive motets in Giovanni Gabrieli’s Sacrae symphoniae of 1597 demonstrates their integration into ecclesiastical music. It was the task of the church to articulate the significance of the city state in brilliant ceremonies. As the main church of the state, St Mark's was the place of public ceremonial. Gabrieli was thus (in 1615) “Organist of St Mark`s for the Republic of Venice”. Since 1567 St Mark’s had engaged its own instrumentalists, who were joined on special occasions by extra players to form larger ensembles. Venice stood not only at the height of its economic power, but was also the centre of artistic activity for northern Italy and beyond. The artistic diversity of the canzona reflects a part of this great city’s culture. Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"