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<< -- 3 -- Robert Hugill EMOTIONAL IMMEDIACY
Between the Kyrie and Gloria we get one of Andrea's florid organ intonations;
lovely scene setting music. The mass is in six parts (seven in the Agnus Dei). Composed
in the period after the Council of Trent (1542), it avoids elaborate counterpoint and wears
its polyphony lightly so that the words could be audible. Published in 1572, it is a parody
mass based on Gabrieli's motet Pater peccavi in caelum from his earliest published
collection dating from 1565. The mass is sung by a vocal ensemble of six solo voices doubled
by six instruments with organ. In certain sections they reduce and mix the scoring in various
ways, to good effect [listen -- track 4, 1:06-2:15] It is
in the passages that are instrumentally doubled that the cornets and sackbuts really show
their metal, but really everyone is on fine form
[listen -- track 10, 0:00-0:57].
This disc is highly recommendable to everyone, not just the specialist. Compared to later
Venetian music, the items here require quite modest forces but it is a mark of
Andrea Gabrieli's genius that the music has all the colour, imagination and emotional immediacy
that we associate with the music of the period.
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