Review

Reviewed Work(s): Giovanni Gabrieli: Opera Omnia, II. Motetta. Sacrae Symphoniae (1597)
by Denis Arnold and Giovanni Gabrieli
Review by: Egon Kenton
Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Apr., 1961), pp. 256-263
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/740735
Accessed: 10-04-2020 13:10 UTC

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 REVIEWS OF BOOKS

GIOVANNI GABRIELI: OPERA OMNIA, II. Motetta. Sacrae Symphoniae

(1597). Edited by Denis Arnold. (Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, 12.) (Ameri-
can Institute of Musicology, Rome, 1959. Pp. I, 245.)

With the second volume of Giovanni Gabrieli's Complete Works in

our hands, fifty motets, three Mass sections, and two Magnificats are
now available for study - almost all the surviving works of the earlier
period of this master. The remaining three works (of the four men-
tioned in this writer's review of the first volume,' one, O Fili Dei suc-
curre miseris, proved to be identical with Sancta Maria succurre mi-
seris, No. 8 in Sacrae Symphoniae, 1597') will only corroborate the
impression gained from the study of these two volumes.

Paradoxically, what seems to be most important about these motets

does not appear in the volume under review: the many-voiced and
polychoral canzoni. There are fifteen of them in the Sacrae Sympho-
niae, Liber I, for from eight to fifteen voices, and from one to three
choirs. This would be a novelty in itself. The presence of such a large
number of instrumental works in a collection of sacred music is un-
precedented. Equally uncommon is the many-voiced and polychoral
canzon da sonar at this date. What is provocative, however, in the
juxtaposition of these vocal and instrumental works is the correspon-
dence between their structures, the diversity and variety of these struc-
tures, and their obvious interdependence. Or may we say interchange-
able derivation? The same phenomena can be observed relative to the
motets of 1615 and the canzoni published in that year. Which influ-
enced the other? Which served as experiment, the result being applied
to the other? The composer did not give a hint, be it ever so vague.
He wrote but two forewords in his life: a moving tribute to his uncle
in 1587, and a friendly, .bantering congratulation to his friends, the
1Vol. XLIII (1957), 409, of this periodical.
2 The German editor who brought out these four motets in 1600 changed the
text incipit undoubtedly to make the motet usable in the Lutheran service.

256

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 Reviews of Books 257

Fugger brothers, in 1597. In these he ce

himself to us, but he left us in the dar
to him, Haydn, with his announcement
are "in an entirely new manner," seem
But there is a small indication that m
if it will forever remain hypothetica
his most popular secular work, Lieto
designated per cantar et sonar. The Di
two other secular works, Fuggi pur s
for two choirs, designated as arie per
demonstrate elsewhere,3 it is in these w
experimented with cori spezzati as well
principles that he later applied to many
works. There is just a bare possibility t
to spare himself the added trouble of
of the text in melody, rhythm, and har
form - the element that is most con
and that he tried out new structures in
sonar, then purely per sonar. These str
without symmetrical sections; with limi
presented sections (repetition or recapit
forms. And these very structures are f
insist on calling motets, when the comp
for them: sacra symphonia. It may seem
that the term symphonia, ever since th
has an instrumental connotation, and th
instrumental canzoni in this collecti
separated, after the forty-five choral w
of the Sacrae Symphoniae instrumental
the vocal works, before, between, and
portions. And the combination of vocal
precedents in the works of Francesco
vazzoni,5 among others. It is, then, bey
and the motets of Gabrieli belong toget
3 Giovanni Gabrieli, His Life and Works, i
4 Tenori e contrabassi intabulati col sopran
sonar col lauto, Venice, 1509 and 1511.
5 Intavolatura ciod Recercari, Canzoni, Hinni, Magnificati, Venice, 1542. In
these prints, the ricercari are clearly intended as preludes to choral works. Cf.
Jeppesen, Die italienische Orgelmusik am Anfang des Cinquecento, Copenhagen,
1943.

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 258 The Musical Quarterly
may be used as "Hoir- und Spiel-Musik," the composer
tion in the 1597 publication was to provide instrumen
the sacred vocal works.

In the volume under review, we can observe the experiments as

conducted in the vocal realm. In fact, it must be stated at the outset
that Giovanni Gabrieli was concerned with experiments in a novel
style, the music of the future, right from the start, and that he was
little concerned with the past. For even in his earliest motets he showed
his utter disregard for tradition. Palestrina was still to live for seven
years in 1587 and to use cantus firmi and material for parody and
paraphrase, while Gabrieli already employed his vocal parts in a con-
certante manner, and contrasted ranges and sound-levels for structural
purposes.

Examination of the structure of the sacrae symphoniae is rewarding.

The through-composed specimens will naturally be found among the
few-voiced, one-choir works. There are only a few examples of this form,
among them Cantate Domino and Exaudi Domine a 6, Benedixisti a 7,
and Diligam te Domine a 8.

We may, in Giovanni Gabrieli's case, call those works few-voiced in

which he never split the choir, i.e., those written for up to seven, and
in a few cases eight, parts. There are eight such works among forty-five
in this collection. The majority of the pieces are, then, many-voiced.
Four of the eight-part motets are for one choir, the rest, i.e. the eight-,
ten-, twelve-, fifteen-, and sixteen-part pieces, are for two, three, and
four choirs. The majority is thus polychoral.

A work for two or more choirs needs some structural device to keep
it from becoming diffuse and from giving the impression of disorgani-
zation. Therefore, different and gradually more complicated devices
are introduced to hold them together and to give satisfaction to the ear
and to the memory. There are twice-presented sections at the beginning
of Angelus Domini, Beata es virgo and internal repetitions in Exultate
justi, Ego sum qui sum, Hoc tegitur Christus a 8, but incomparably
more effective is the repetition of the final section. Such a crowning
repetition will be found in that amazing piece of dark color - TTBar-
BarBSb (Sub-bass) Sb - Exaudi Deus orationem meam a 7. It appears
also in Jubilate Deo a 8 where, in addition, a short section in ternary
meter adds to the fine articulation of the edifice; in lam non dicam a 8,
where the Alleluia is used for the same purpose (repeated musical sec-

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 Reviews of Books 259

tions at the end, but with the choirs

of the Alleluia in the middle); Hoc teg
statement on the transubstantiation i
that, with its repetition, takes up mor
Domini descendit a 8, where we fin
of the exposition and a repetition of t
The structural role of the Alleluia
serve as a coda (Virgo Maria, Deu
a ternary refrain in the ten-part Surr
Hodie Christus natus est, there being f
in the second and third pieces, beside
(Here the original binary meter fu
other, different structural uses of th
choirs, and Virtute magna and R
Joyful text-lines set in ternary mete
Jubilate Deo a 15 for three choirs, or
as in Omnes gentes a 16 for four
exhaustive.

The general pause is also given a role in the formal articulation.

Plaudite a 12 starts with a single voice in the three separate choirs
calling successively "Plaudite!" After the three calls there is a minim
rest, and the word Jubilate is intoned by a full choir of four voices.
Rests provide structural articulation in Jubilate Deo a 15 and in Quis
est a 10.

It was only later in his life that Giovanni Gabrieli applied with
assurance the potent means of unifying a piece called recapitulation.
This is only natural. A general use of this device is not seen before its
employment in dances and arias by composers several generations
younger. But there is an example of recapitulation in Domine, Dominus
noster a 8. (More of it will be seen in Liber II, 1615, of the Sacrae
Symphoniae.)
The harmony is almost entirely tonal and very simple - in fact,
simpler than in some of Gabrieli's earlier madrigals. This means that
the music is more progressive: nearer to the simple tonal harmonies
of the early Baroque. A secondary consequence results for the trans-
criber, namely very little need for the application of editorial acciden-
tals. Indeed, aside from the subsemitonium modi and a few cases where
an accidental is missing from one part but present in another, the
problems of musica ficta are almost entirely absent.

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260 The Musical Quarterly
That Giovanni Gabrieli, in his earlier period, was sti
terms of modes, is undeniable. A proof is his designati
mental works in this collection. Their modes are invar
head of the pieces. Nevertheless, they stray from the
too frequently to be considered purely modal. This is r
melodic lines. If the latter are examined according
applied by Jeppesen to Palestrina's melodic lines, th
be plain: Gabrieli's is a style moving towards the Baroq
system. Gabrieli's rhythm, however, has no such impl
ordinary drive is a personal trait. It permeates the ent
music and frequently upsets the meter. It is certainly
than the melodic element; in fact, one can hardly sp
in these works, dominated, as they are, by the text an
expression. This is especially striking in a comparison w
and the instrumental works. In the former, Gabrieli s
than words to a melody, and even if they are short
closed or almost closed melodic phrases. In the latt
those called sonata - we find long, closed melodies. T
seem to be almost entirely built up on melodic fragme
attention by their characteristic and characterizing rhyt
is continued, as it were, in the rhythm of the alternati
the alternation of meter.

And this puts a second editorial problem into focus. While 19th-
century editors forced early music into the straitjacket of measures
characteristic of the music of the period between c. 1650 and c. 1900,
more recent transcribers try to avoid the pitfalls prepared by the resultants
of the barline: accentuation and its effects on the distribution of con-
sonance and dissonance. The barlines are, therefore, removed from the
staves and transferred to the spaces between them. This is the practice
followed by Arnold. It is, however, a delusion. So is the notion that
there was no regular accentuation before the introduction of the barline.
As Reese logically argues: "there would have been no point in confining
suspensions, for example, to the first and third beats in binary rhythm
or to the first and second beats in ternary rhythm, etc., if there had
been no such underlying accentuation."' The accentuation was simply
more elastic than in later music. What editors do is exactly what has
been done by composers who wished, from the last decades of the 19th
century on, to escape from the unrelieved monotony of the same meter
retained through an entire movement.
6 Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance, New York, 1954, p. 461.

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 Reviews of Books 261

Sixteenth-century composers, of cour

barlines when there was a practica
University MS 40028 is a folio manusc
Hassler, Erbach, the two Gabrielis,
by Adam Gumpelzhaimer and dated
entire braces throughout the volumin
haimer was unable to align his note
quite a bit in order to have the not
Bibl. MS 15943 is a large choirbook co
Flemish composers. In a Mass a 5 by C
to the end of Kyrie III the music is in
ture 4( 3. To facilitate the task of the
across the staves, in all the five par
Arbeau, in his Orchesographie (Lan
score, p. 30 ff. The same may be seen
Le Roy's Traite' de Musique contenante
diquement pratiquer la composition
back to Codex Faenza 117 of the 15t
music was in score, or complicated.

If the editor, then, feels the necess

(instead of stave-barlines), and place
rules governing dissonance treatment
the staves, reserving the space-barlin
may lead to inconsistency.

E.g., mm. 18-19 and 31 in Surrexi

83). True, both text and music con
nothing warrants a barline before
the same as on the weak third beat
inconsistent, a half measure before
of course gain as much stress as th
qui in the first case certainly has mo
the second, thus deserving at least
cases, but it would be quibbling to d
from the unassailable to the problema
be wrong, only unjust, should we rem
in the barring - that is, in the deci
apply a mechanical meter or a mor
there is no clear-cut basis in the m

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262 The Musical Quarterly
method, the music being more elastic than that of t
period.

It is more difficult to reconcile oneself with the editor's method of

joining small note-values with a beam, or letting them stand singly,
with their separate flags. Since the time-values have been halved in
most cases, but cut by four in some, a large number of small note-
values result, blurring the tactus feeling. There is a tradition to join
by a beam the small notes sung to one syllable. The editor here joined
them sometimes on the basis of single words. These are often astride
the barlines - just as conspicuous for the eye when they are between
the staves as when they are placed on the staves. The space-barlines
were put in in the first place to clarify the tactus feeling for the reader.
Now the musically irregular groups of short notes, made conspicuous
by their connecting beam, blur this feeling (e.g., p. 17, m. 39). But
sometimes the editor's procedure is baffling. For example, on p. 6,
mm. 2-4 (Exsultate justi), the word exsultate is separated in the music,
while the two words in Domino are joined by a beam and lie astride
the barline, creating an apparent rhythmic complexity that does not
really exist in the music. (This orthography is reminiscent of that of
certain 20th-century composers who made a fetish of confusing the
eye and making a mockery of the barline.) In the same piece, p. 9,
m. 31, verbum Domini is rationally represented in the second choir,
while in m. 32, first choir, we have -bum Domini, or p. 11, m. 49 f.,
with plena est in one part and -na est terra in another. These are just
two examples of the many inconsistencies of this kind.

The "diminution" of the original note-values is another. Why cut

by two in one case, and by four in another? This reviewer feels certain
that the editor has an explanation. Unfortunately, the good tradition
of sending ahead an ambassador in the form of a Revisionsbericht was
dispensed with here, as it was for Vol. I, with the result that the
reviewer as well as every user of the volume must feel some disappoint-
ment and irritation.

As in Vol. I of the Opera Omnia, the editor omitted the indication

of ligatures in Vol. II. Instead, a "minor addition to solve problems
occurring in this new volume" is announced, namely, the enclosure of
short passages appearing in the original print in black notation "and
denoting hemiola rhythm" between interrupted brackets ([ 7).
At the risk of being pedantic, we suggest a rewording of this editorial

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 Reviews of Books 263

warning, for the black notes are not "a

volume," but present in the entire or
published in the first volume. Moreover
different prints containing Giovanni
really no problem at all, and may or ma
(they do not, for example, in Omnes

In the General Introduction to the firs

that "Critical notes with a full list of sources will be issued at the end
of each complete volume." No such notes appear at the end of either
Vol. I or Vol. II, and in a sixteen-line Foreword to the second volume
the editor declares that "Exactly the same editorial principles . . . have
been followed, and a full statement can be found in the foreword to
the earlier volume." This is puzzling and disappointing.

The outward appearance of Vol. II of Giovanni Gabrieli's Opera

Omnia is as impressive as that of Vol. I, coming, as it does, from the
same oficina. In an undertaking of this magnitude the intrusion of
some errors or oversights is inevitable, and does not deserve mention.
On the other hand, the work accomplished, the achievement--the
first modern reprint of Gabrieli's Symphoniae Sacrae, Liber I - defi-
nitely deserves commendation. Whether one agrees with the editorial
methods or not, the fact that with these two volumes the historical
importance and artistic excellence of Giovanni Gabrieli's music will,
at least in part, become clear for the first time to an unrestricted number
of scholars and students, dwarfs any shortcomings in the edition. And
Gabrieli's music is so fascinating that it attracts all the attention to
itself at once.

EGON KENTON

PROKOFIEV. By Israel V. Nestyev. Translated from the Russian by Florence

Jonas. Foreword by Nicolas Slonimsky. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 1960. Pp. XIV, 528.)

In 1946, a monograph on Prokofiev by Israel Nestyev was published

in New York by Alfred A. Knopf. The original Russian version was
planned as a tribute to Prokofiev's fiftieth birthday in 1941, but the war
delayed its completion, and it was not published in the Soviet Union at
the time.

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