''Sonata pian' e forte'' was composed by Italian composer and organist

Giovanni Gabrieli Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554/1557 – 12 August 1612) was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift f ...

and published in 1597. This is one of the earliest known pieces of music to specify loud and quiet passages in print. (The distinction of being the first belongs to

Adriano Banchieri Adriano Banchieri (Bologna, 3 September 1568 – Bologna, 1634) was an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna. Biography He wa ...

's "Canzon undecima in echo" in 1596).Giovanni Gabrieli Opera Omnia, Ed. Richard Charteris, vol. X, p. XIII (

American Institute of Musicology The American Institute of Musicology (AIM) is a musicological organization that researches, promotes and produces publications on early music. Founded in 1944 by Armen Carapetyan, the AIM's chief objective is the publication of modern editions ...

, 1998)

Description

The title ''Sonata pian’e forte'' refers to an instrumental piece that uses soft and loud dynamics. The piece is an example of the

Venetian polychoral style The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation. It represented a major stylistic shift from the prevailing polyphonic writing of the ...

, which developed in sixteenth-century northern Italy, and found particular favor at

St Mark's Basilica The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark ( it, Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco), commonly known as St Mark's Basilica ( it, Basilica di San Marco; vec, Baxéłega de San Marco), is the cathedral church of the Catholic Chu ...

due to

architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings o ...

features of the interior. The term "

Sonata Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cant ...

" at this time referred specifically to a work originally conceived for instruments, as opposed to those based on vocal works. It was most probably intended for a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

service at either St Mark's,

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

or the

Scuola Grande di San Rocco The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is a building in Venice, northern Italy. It is noted for its collection of paintings by Tintoretto and generally agreed to include some of his finest work. History The building is the seat of a confraternity establ ...

. It was written for eight instruments divided into two groups of four players, spatially separated.

Form

Gabrieli's ''Sonata pian ’e forte'' is a through-composed work, the structure of which is defined by dialogue between the two instrumental choirs. The formal division into an initial section (Mm. 1–31), a longer, relatively complex middle section (Mm. 31–71) and a final section (Mm. 71–81) conforms to the conventions prevalent at the time. The overall form can be represented as follows: • Mm. 1–14: Antecedent in choir 1 (''piano'') / 14 measures / G Dorian • Mm. 14-25: Consequent in choir 2 (''piano'') / 12 measures / G Dorian with harmonic excursions into D major (m. 17) and F major (m. 21) • Mm. 26–31: Both choirs tutti (''forte'') / 6 measures / C Mixolydian • Mm. 31–71: Antiphonal middle section (continual alternation between ''piano'' and ''forte'') / 40 measures total, divided into 12 + 12 + 8 + 8 measures; structured into phrases of differing lengths: 4 measures ( mm. 31–34), 2 measures (mm. 37/38) or 1 measure (m. 59) / continually modulating • Mm. 71–81: Final section (''piano'', then ''forte'') / 11 measures / cadence in G Dorian Within the each section there are frequent examples of phrase elision, such as in m. 14, where the cadence of the first choir overlaps with the entrance of the second choir. Individual phrases often begin or end on weak beats within the measure.

References

External links

* {{italic title Compositions by Giovanni Gabrieli Spatial music

Description

Form

See also

References

External links