Venetian School (music)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Venetian School describes the composers who worked in Venice from about 1550 to around 1610, many of them in what is called the Venetian polychoral style. By the late sixteenth century, their polychoral pieces ranked among the most famous music anywhere in Europe. Composers in other countries absorbed their methods on an enormous scale. Historians pair the school with the contemporary invention of monody and opera in Florence. Together, the two developments mark the point where Renaissance music gives way to the Baroque. Why did one city shape that turning point? What did its composers do that listeners elsewhere wanted to copy? And what happened when Venice's own musicians split into rival camps and argued in public?

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• 2. Rome Eclipsed

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  Rome's long-dominant musical establishment was eclipsed after two blows: the death of Pope Leo X in 1521 and the Sack of Rome in 1527. Many musicians moved elsewhere. Others simply chose not to go to Rome at all. Venice was one of several places that offered an environment where creativity could thrive. The pull of Rome never vanished entirely, and historians still use the label Roman School to set it apart from its Venetian counterpart. The Roman School is usually described as the more conservative of the two. Ferrara, Naples, Padua, Mantua and Milan also hosted important musical activity in Italy at the same time. Yet none of those rivals had what Venice had in its principal church, a building whose shape would dictate how its music had to sound.

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• 3. Sound in St Mark's

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  St Mark's Basilica has an interior unlike most churches, with choir lofts that face one another across the space. Its spacious architecture creates a delay in sound, and composers had to decide how to treat it. They chose to use the delay rather than struggle against it. The result was the Venetian polychoral style, a grand antiphonal approach. Groups of singers and instrumentalists answered one another from opposite sides, sometimes contrasting and sometimes joining forces. The organ held the combined sound together. The source describes the basilica as possibly the most important single factor behind the school's rise. The composer who first made this effect famous came from Flanders, and he held the top musical post at the basilica for decades.

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• 4. Willaert the Teacher

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  In 1527, the Flemish composer Adrian Willaert became maestro di cappella of St. Mark's, the top musical post there. He remained in that position until his death in 1562. Gioseffo Zarlino, one of the most influential writers on music of the age, called him "the new Pythagoras". Willaert's reach extended beyond his own compositions. He was also a teacher, and most of the Venetians who came after him studied under him. A single master therefore shaped the habits of an entire generation of the city's composers. The admiring Zarlino would one day hold the same post himself, and that fact set the stage for trouble.

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• 5. Printers and Foreigners

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  Early in the sixteenth century, Venice was prosperous and stable, and it had become an important center of music publishing. Printed music was a new technology then, only a few decades old. Composers arrived from all parts of Europe to take advantage of it. Those from northern Europe, especially Flanders and France, had a reputation as the most skilled in the continent, and many of them settled in the city. The international flavor of Venetian musical society lingered into the seventeenth century. That crowd of foreign talent soon raised an awkward question about who should be leading the city's most prestigious musical post.

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• 6. Feud at the Feast

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  In 1569, the Feast of Saint Mark became the stage for a dramatic, public conflict between Baldassare Donato and Gioseffo Zarlino. Two groups had formed in the 1560s. Donato led a progressive camp. Zarlino, who held the top job at St. Mark's, led a conservative one. The conservatives leaned toward the style of Franco-Flemish polyphony, and their ranks included Cipriano de Rore, Zarlino and Claudio Merulo. The progressives included Donato, Giovanni Croce and, later, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli. The groups also disagreed about whether a Venetian, or at least an Italian, ought to be given the top job. The camp favoring local talent won, which ended the dominance of foreign musicians. Giovanni Croce was appointed to the post in 1603, and Giulio Cesare Martinengo followed him in 1609.

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• 7. The Gabrieli Peak

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  The 1580s brought the school to its peak, when Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli composed enormous works for multiple choirs. Their scores called for brass, string instruments and organ together. These pieces were the first to include dynamics, the markings that tell performers when to play loudly or softly. They were also among the first to give specific instructions about which instruments should perform. At the same time, the organists Claudio Merulo and Girolamo Diruta began to define an instrumental style and technique. That approach traveled to northern Europe in the following generations. It culminated in the works of Sweelinck, Buxtehude and eventually J.S. Bach.

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• 8. The Roll Call

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  Eighteen composers are counted as major members of the Venetian School, and the earliest born was Adrian Willaert, around 1490. Jacques Buus was born around 1500 and died in 1565. Nicola Vicentino lived from 1511 until around 1576. Cipriano de Rore, born around 1515, also died in 1565. Gioseffo Zarlino lived from 1517 to 1590, and Baldassare Donato from 1525 to 1603. Annibale Padovano was born in 1527 and died in 1575. Costanzo Porta lived from around 1529 to 1601, Andrea Gabrieli from around 1532 to 1585, and Claudio Merulo from 1533 to 1604. Gioseffo Guami was born around 1540 and died in 1611. Vincenzo Bellavere died in 1587, and Girolamo Dalla Casa died in 1601. Girolamo Diruta was born around 1554 and lived beyond 1610. Giovanni Gabrieli lived from around 1555 to 1612, and Giovanni Croce from around 1557 to 1609. Giovanni Bassano was born around 1558 and died around 1617. Giulio Cesare Martinengo, born around 1561, died around 1613. Bassano's death, years after the school's conventional end around 1610, shows that its youngest members carried the tradition well into the Baroque.

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