Luogo e data di registrazione		St. Osdag Church, Mandelsloh (Germany) - 11/15 June 1994
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer / Editing		Peter Laenger (Tritonus)
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Sony / Vivarte - S2K 66 254 - (2 CDs) - durata 61' 59" & 63' 33" - (p) 1995 - DDD
	Cover Art		Carnival by Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768) - Bowes Museum, Co. Durham
	Note		-

The arrival of Adrian Willaert as maestro di cappella of St. Mark's in 1527 marks the beginning of a long period of musical expansion during which Venice distinguishes itself in many respects as the most “musical” city in Italy. The presence, in St. Mark's, of some of the most celebrated composers and performers of the day is matched, outside the Ducal Chapel, by certain aspects of everyday life: the enormous diffusion - perhaps without parallel elsewhere in Europe - of music-making in the ecclesiastical and lay institutions, palaces and private houses; the affirmation of the figure of the professional musician; the extraordinary development of musical commerce, above all with regard to publishing and instrument making. The musical supremacy of St. Mark's remains unchallenged until at least the fourth decade of the 17'th century (when the proliferation of opera provides an alternative and lucrative means of support for the most gifted singers). The cappella consisted of a maestro, two organists, the singers (whose number declines from the 29 performers listed in a document of 1562 to the 13 singers on the permanent registers in 1589 and again in 1595, rising to 25 in 1616 and the 35 elements on the payroll for March-April 1643), the so-called giovani di coro (whose duties were principally concerned with the performance of plainchant), the capo dei concerti (leader of the instrumental band) and the instrumentalists (four cornettists and trombonists enter the regular employment of St. Mark's in 1568, and a list of 1616 names a total of 16 players of brass and string instruments). There were also the so-called piffari del doge: six players who accompanied the doge in processions and who were sometimes called upon lo perform in church. The musicians enjoyed excellent conditions of service: “tenured” employment (and subsequent pension), comfortable stipends and the liberty to augment their earnings performing in other churches, in the private palaces and on behalf of the numerous confraternities. The activities of the scuole or confraternities, as also of the many corporations of tradesmen from which they are frequently indistinguishable, involved mutual assistance (for the burial of brethren and support of their families), charitable acts in favour of the sick and poor, and the organization of community devotional practices. Six confraternities, larger than the others with a total of 500-600 members each, were commonly referred to as scuole grandi: these were the Scuole di S. Maria della Carità, S. Giovanni Evangelista, S. Maria della Misericordia, S. Marco, S. Teodoro and S. Rocco. Smaller organizations, termed scuole piccole, are estimated to have numbered over 200 in any given period. Each confraternity was dedicated to the veneration of a particular saint or cult, honoured in the name of the altar maintained by the confraternity itself in one or other of the city's churches. A recent study by Elena Quaranta has shed much light on the place of polyphony in the devotional practices of the smaller confraternities and, in general, in the liturgical uses of the monastic and parish churches of Venice, above all in the context of the annual celebrations of their titular saints. The presence of groups of professional musicians on these occasions can be documented in the case of some one hundred feasts per year. However, agreements such as that stipulated in 1598 between the Augustinian friars of S. Stefano and the Scuola della Beata Vergine della Cintura,which establishes the confraternity's right to “hire singers and instrumentalists” for the celebration of its annual feast “as is usual and customary in the city”, would suggest that the number was considerably higher, pointing to the existence of a veritable circuit of venues and occasions capable of providing not only additional employment for the musicians of St. Mark's but also an acceptable level of income for a large number of other singers and instrumentalists. As has been documented by Jonathan Glixon, during most of the 16th and the opening decades of the 17th century the six scuole grandi were providers of regular employment for some eight or nine singers  and four to six instrumentalists. The singers fell into two distinct categories: the cantadori di morti or cantadori vecchi, traditionally a group of four singers of modest ability, drawn from among the poorer brethren of the confraternity, whose function was to sing during funerals, and the cantadori di laudi or cantadori nuovi, professional singers who performed polyphony during “High Mass and the procession on the first Sunday of every month, all processions ordered by the Illustrissima Signoria, and on all feasts of visitation of the scuole grandi”.On all three types of occasion, the musical performances could attain levels of considerable splendours. As early as 1515, the Masses and processions promoted on the first Sunday of each month by the Scuola Grande di S. Marco saw the participation of at least twelve singers, trumpets, shawms, recorders, cornetts, lute, harp and viol; the venue for the Mass was the neighbouring church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. In 1598, the procession ordered by the Signoria in celebration of the peace between France and Spain featured, among the various allegorical carri or “floats”, several of obvious musical interest: one with “a marvellous and most noble concert of lutes”, another with “five valorous musicians, who sang”, yet another with “four young men who sang musically”, a fourth “with three young men, one of whom played a spinet, another a viola da gamba and the third a violin”. The commemorations of the six patron saints of the scuole grandi were celebrated in the presence of their combined musical forces. On November 9, 1607 (the feast of St. Theodore), Jean-Baptiste Du Val, secretary to the French ambassador in Venice, was present in the church of S. Salvatore (a church closely associated with the adjacent Scuola Grande di S. Teodoro, which on this day commemorated its patron saint), where he heard Vespers celebrated with the participation “of the best musicians to be had, both singers and instrumentalists”. The instrumental ensemble consisted “principally of six small organs, besides that of the church which is very good, trombones or sackbuts, hautbois, viols, violins, lutes, cornetts, recorders and flageolets”. The duties of a musician at the Scuola Grande di S. Rocco in the 16th and early 17th centuries have been documented by Denis Arnold. The obligations of the singers (mentioned above), together with those of the instrumentalists, seem to have increased rapidly in the aftermath of the bubonic plague in 1575-77; St. Roch was the patron saint of plague sufferers, and the occasion served to increase both membership of the confraternity and its finances. When the instrumentalists petition for a rise in salary, they point out that their counterparts in the other confraternities “do not have half the processions that we do, since we have double the processions they have, which are 41 in number”. The organist`s duties are summarized in a list drawn up in 1558 on the occasion of the installation of a new organ “over the door of the [adjacent] church” of S. Rocco: 24 feast days at Mass and Vespers, and, with the exception of Advent and Lent, the first Sunday of each month at Mass, all Sundays at Vespers and all Fridays at Compline. Prior to 1568, the post of organist at S. Rocco is filled by persons of no particular historical significance. From this date until 1585, however, the incumbent is Vincenzo Bellavere (who later replaces Andrea Gabrieli as organist of St. Mark's). An entry in an account book of 1585 identifies Bellavere's successor: “August 4, 1585. Received by me. Jovanni Gabriello, organist, from the Most Magnificent Grand Warden, 24 ducats as the salary for the year beginning 13 February”. Gabrieli remained in the service of the Scuola for the rest of his life. The confraternity employed no regular choirmasters. The role is mentioned only in connection with the annual feast of St. Roch: for example, in 1595 it is filled by Giovanni Croce, then singer and later maestro di cappella at St. Mark's, whose task was evidently that of coordinating the exceptionally large forces assembled for the occasion. Besides the confraternity's four cantadori nuovi and those of the other scuole grandi, payments are registered to two further companies of singers, three companies of instrumentalists and extra players of stringed instruments, as also for the hire of ti n unspecified number of organs. Outlay for the 1604 celebrations included payments to a company of singers lcd by the vice maestro di cappella at St. Mark's, Bartolo Morosini, two companies of singers from Padua,“a Polish bass, singer at St. Mark's” and “other special singers”, ai company of instrumentalists led by the virtuoso cnrnettist Giovanni Bassano, six violinists, a violone, four lutes, seven organs (one played by Gabrieli) and a further four unspecified instruments. The payments for 1608 document an ensemble of similar proportions, in which a number of solo singers figure prominently: among them Vido Rovetta, composer of a demanding solo motet in Simonett's Ghirlanda sacra of 1625, and Bartolomeo Barbarino, himself the author of a volume of solo motets. In the light of this documentation, Thomas Coryat's remarkally detailed description of the 1608 festivities can be seen as a highly accurate spectator's account of what was already a well-consolidated tradition. © 1995 David Douglas Bryant THE FEAST OF ST. ROCH 1608 The Englishman, Thomas Coryat, witnessed the feast of St. Roch in 1608 and described it in his travel journal published as Coryat's Crudities in London in 1611. He wrote: "This feast consisted principally of Musicke, which was both vocall and instrumentall, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so super excellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like. But how others were affected with it I know not; for mine owne part I can say this, that I was for the time even rapt up with Saint Paul into the third heaven. Sometimes there sung sixteene or twenty men together, having their master or moderator to keepe them in order; and when they sung, the instrumentall musicians played also. Sometimes sixteene played together upon their instruments, ten Sagbuts, foure Cornets, and two Violdegambaes of an extraordinary greatnesse; sometimes tenne, six Sagbuts and foure Cornets; sometimes two, a Cornet and a treble violl. Of those treble viols I heard three severall there, whereof each was so good, especially one that I observed above the rest, that I never heard the like before. Those that played upon the treble viols, sung and played together, and sometimes two singular fellowes played together upon Theorboes, to which they sung also,who yeelded admirable sweet musicke, but so still that they could scarce be heard but by those that were very neare them. These two Theorbists concluded that nights musicke, which continued three whole howers at the least. For they beganne about five of the clocke, and ended not before eight. Also it continued as long in the morning: at everytime that every severall musicke played, the Organs, whereof there are seven faire paire in that room, standing al in a rowe together, plaied with them. Of the singers there were three or foure so excellent that I thinke few or none in Christendome do excell them, especially one, who had such a peerelesse and (as I may in a manner say) such a supernaturall voice for the sweetnesse that I thinke there was never a better singer in all the world, insomuch that he did not onely give the most pleasant contentment that could be imagined, to all the hearers, but also did as it were astonish and amaze them. I alwaies thought that he was a Eunuch, which if he had beene, it had taken away some part of my admiration, because they do most commonly sing passing wel; but he was not, therefore it was much the more admirable. Againe it was the more worthy of admiration, because he was a middle-aged man, as about forty yeares old. For nature doth more commonly bestowe such a singularitie of voice upon boyes and striplings, than upon men of such yeares. Besides it was farre the more excellent, because it was nothing forced, strained or affected, but came from him with the greatest facilitie that ever I heard. Truely, I thinke that had a Nightingale beene in the same roome, and contended with him for the superioritie, something perhaps he might excell him,because God hath granted that little birde such a priviledge for the sweetnesse of his voice, as to none other: but I thinke he could not much. To conclude, I attribute so much to this rare fellow for his singing, that I thinke the country where he was borne, may be as proude for breeding so singular a person as Smyrna was of her Homer, Verona of her Catullus, or Mantua of Virgil: But exceeding happy may that Citie, or towne, or person bee that possesseth this miracle of nature.” RECONSTRUCTING THE FEAST Although Coryat's well-known description of the feast of St. Roch, which took place in 1608 is detailed and accurate, no pieces of music performed can be identified with certainty; and therefore no exaggerated claims to historical accuracy are being made here. Nevertheless his account, together with a study of the still-extant payment records for the feast, do allow us to reconstruct the performance forces involved and present some of Giovanni Gabrieli's best music in a way that it can be better appreciated by the modern listener. Gabrieli - as organist of the Scuola di S. Rocco - would have been mainly responsible for the feast; his music is complemented here by small-scale instrumental and vocal pieces by conteinporaries, two of whom - Barbarino and Grandi - are thought to have taken part in the festivities. It is almost certain that such unique works as the Sonata for three violins (Disc 1, Tr.11) and that for four cornetts and ten sackbutts (Disc 2, Tr.4) were actually performed on that occasion but otherwise the choice of pieces must remain speculative. Nevertheless all the combinations described by Coryat - including singers accompanied by chordal violin-playing - can be found on this recording. The employment of seven organists seems to point to the seven-choir Magnificat à 33; only ten parts of this work have survived, however the composer's Magnificat à 17 and the doxology from his Nunc dimittis (1597) represent a reworking of the same material for smaller forces, enabling a reconstruction without too much guesswork. The origin of Gabrieli's trumpet-call motives is made evident in the opening Toccata, in which reconstructions of the long, straight Venetian trumpets in F can be heard for the first time here. No expense seems to have been spared to make the festivities as spectacular as possible. The records confirm that, apart from the singers from St. Mark's, performers included extra soloists brought in from further afield. Three groups of wind-players, three highlypaid violinists (called viol-players by Coryat), lute-players and seven organists.In the cappella of St. Mark's at this time, falsettists generally sang the soprano parts, high tenors taking the alto parts. Although one or two castrati may have taken part in 1608, the star soprano was - then as now - a falsettist. The trombones and cornetti used here are based on original instruments played with historical mouthpieces in order to retain clarity of sound even in the largest pieces despite  the predominance of the lower instruments. The high pitch standard (a'=456 Hz) also plays an iiiportant part in this respect. Thanks are due to Prof. Lajos Rovatkay for the loan of microfilnis of Grandi's compositions. © 1995 Roland Wilson