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Giovanni Gabrieli

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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GIOVANNI GABRIELI (1 5571612 ?), Italian musical composer, was born at Venice in 1557, and was a pupil of his uncle Andrea, a distinguished musician of the contrapuntal school and organist of St Mark's. He succeeded Claudio Merulo as first organist of the same church in 1585, and died at Venice either in 161 2 or 1613. He was remarkable for his compositions for several choirs, writing frequently for 12 or 16 voices, and is important as an early experimenter in chromatic harmony. It was probably for this reason that he made a special point of combining voices with instruments, being thus one of the founders of choral and orchestral composition. Among his pupils was Heinrich Schutz; and the church of St Mark, from the time of the Gabrielis onwards down to that of Lotti, became one of the most important musical schools in Europe.

See also Winterfeld, Johann Gabrieli and seine Zeit (1834).