Giovanni

From the eleventh century, Venetian mariners gathered together once each year to offer prayers to San Nicolò, the patron saint of sailors, asking for his continued protection. Initially the service was a simple benediction in which the Adriatic Sea was blessed with holy water. By the late-sixteenth century the ceremony had evolved into one of the most lavish and important dates in the Venetian calendar. Ascension Day now launched a large spring festival which was headed by the symbolic wedding of Venice to the Adriatic—the Sposalizio.

Giovanni Bassano - Mottetti Madrigali et Canzoni francese (1999)
Classical | EAC: FLAC+Cue+Log | 1 Cd, Covers | 259 Mb
Label: TACTUS - Date: 1999

Giovanni Bassano (c. 1558 – summer 1617?) was an Italian Venetian School composer and cornettist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was a key figure in the development of the instrumental ensemble at St. Mark's basilica, and left a detailed book on instrumental ornamentation, which is a rich resource for research in contemporary performance practice. It is not known if he was related to Antonio Bassano a member of a well-known Venetian family of musicians…

To visit the great Venetian cathedrals in the 17th century was to bow deeply to the polychoral or “cori spezzati” style that reigned there, pioneered by Giovanni Gabrieli. The young Heinrich Schutz was no exception. Unable to resist the sparkling sounds arising from polychoral writing and antiphonal placement, Schutz carried the style back to his native Germany. Capella Murensis and Les Cornets Noirs here present with absolute fidelity works by Schutz and Gabrieli that epitomize the high Ventian style.