December 24, 2013

  • Brilliant Gabrieli from Berlin Brass

     

    G. Gabrieli: Music for Brass and Organ
    Andreas Sieling, organ.  Berlin Brass/Lucas Vis
    PentaTone Classics 5186 509
    Total Time:  62:14
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    As the Renaissance came to a close, the Gabrieli’s were essentially setting the stage for the Baroque with a variety of truly remarkable musical sound “experiments”.  Arranging brass and choirs in different parts of cathedrals allowed for some amazing acoustical effects that the uncle, Andrea, and nephew exploited to great effect in their music.  Giovanni Gabrielli (ca. 1555-1612) perfected this polychoral approach for brass especially.  He was a noted organist and his fame as a composer spread throughout Europe.  Among his most famous visitors was perhaps Heinrich Schutz who would also take what he heard here to heart in his own work.  His first works were published in 1587 along with some of his late uncle’s music.  Andrea Gabrieli was a pupil of Orlando de Lasso whose abilities at creating amazing vocal polyphony would not be lost as Garbrieli transformed these into instrumental music.

    The collection of music published in 1597, the Sacrae Symphoniae, are some of these early examples of this “Venetian School” of polychoral writing.  Here we see this adaptation of spatial separation of choirs and instruments interacting in amazing polyphonic writing that highlighted the acoustics of the San Marco cathedral.  A second collection, published after Gabrieli’s death in 1612, the Canzoni e sonate, continued to raise the bar of these principles to ever great heights.  The results were not lost on the new music director, Claudio Monteverdi, who would continue to learn and adapt this into his own work thus laying the groundwork for early Baroque style.

    The present recording is a collection of canzonas and sonatas taken from these two larger collections and interspersed here.  These make use of the variety of smaller and larger brass ensembles .  There are five pieces that explore larger amassed brass from 11-16 parts, sometimes with organ.  The second portion of the program includes three solo organ works (two of which are receiving their first recordings here) and music for 4 brass instruments, culminating in a sonata for 2 choirs of 4 brass.  The final third of the program returns to grander collections of brass and organ combinations from 6 to 26.  The finale featuring the greatest instrumentation spread across 5 choirs with organ.  They all explore some of the finest brass music of the late Renaissance.  What’s more these shifts are well-sequenced so that this hour-long program works quite well as an exhilarating collection of great brass music.  The addition of organ also helps provide some variety to the texture as well.

    Often, these works make appearances for the Christmas season where they add extra color to concerts in cathedrals and ambient halls.  The present recording makes use of PentaTone’s multi-channel recording which is perfect for todays spatially arranged home theater systems.  The brass players all come from some of the finest orchestras in and around Berlin.  The recording itself was done at the Berliner Dom last February (2013) and one can tell that the label knew these were spectacular performances to get this music pressed and released so quickly.  For some of us, we discovered these works on old E. Power Biggs releases where their grandeur seemed beyond the capabilities of our meager LP players.  Today, with many of these works appearing on random discs, it is good to have a complete program of great Gabrieli performances in one place to enjoy and revel in at any season.  The recording captures the great ambience of the cathedral as the music wafts through the room.  This is perhaps one of the Berlin Brass’ finest achievements and makes a worthy addition to any music library.  Sound works well on normal stereos (though will perhaps feel too ambient for some tastes), but pop it into your home theater system for a real treat!