Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Concerto Palatino & Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal conducted by Christopher Jackson.
I - 0:00
Gabrieli's "O magnum mysterium" was published in Volume I of "Concerti di Andrea et di Giovanni Gabrieli" in Venice on 1587, a volume mostly dedicated to the works of his uncle Andrea Gabrieli, but also includes Giovanni's first motets. These early works show much influence of his uncle's style in the use of dialogue and echo effects. In its original form, it is scored for eight voices separated in two groups of four. The first with a cantus, altus, tenor and bassus. The second for an altus, two tenors and a bassus. The text is drawn from the Matins of Christmas in the Roman Breviary.
Just as many European composers beat a trail to Venice to study with the renowned musicians there, the Venetian Giovanni Gabrieli’s earliest studies were with his uncle Andrea, at St Mark’s, before he travelled north to Munich to learn from the esteemed and influential Orlando de Lassus. Returning to Venice, he was appointed to St Mark’s as organist and subsequently, following his uncle’s death, as principal composer. Gabrieli's career rose further when he took the additional post of organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, another post he retained for his entire life. San Rocco was the most prestigious and wealthy of all the Venetian confraternities, and second only to San Marco itself in the splendour of its musical establishment.
The popular historical imagination has long nourished a fascination with the cori spezzati (split choir) traditions of Venice's San Marco Cathedral. Well-known complexities of this church's architecture provide numerous locations for the placement of musical ensembles: multiple choir lofts around the altar, elevated galleries, and even oversized, raised pulpits. Though more sober historical analysis has tempered earlier concepts of a nearly Berliozian disposition of performing forces in San Marco, several generations of Venetian musicians cultivated music that exploits the contrasts between antiphonal groups. The trend culminates in the splendid polychoral motets of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli.
"O magnum mysterium" consistently and classically counterpoises two contrasting vocal choirs while maintaining its elegant proportions. Gabrieli divides his text, which celebrates the lowliness of Christ's birth on Christmas, into three unequal parts; each receives a musical section of roughly equal length. The opening phrase, "O great mystery," is sung three times: once by the first choir, once by the slightly lower second choir, and a third time in climactic full polyphony. The second phrase of text, which explains that the great mystery and "wondrous sacrament" allowed mere animals to see the birth of the Saviour, takes the same tripartite structure, with a temporal broadening into triple rhythmic groups.
The composer packs the most text into the third section, which extols the manger and the blessed Virgin; twice Gabrieli cycles the contrasted vocal choirs, once aspirantly starting with the lower ensemble and rising to the heights. The choral antiphony becomes thus not only a vehicle for grand effect, but also serves to articulate the very structure of the text and to embody its sense. The radiant conclusion of his motet comes in a fourth section, an extended jubilant "alleluia." A series of syncopated, triple-meter antiphonal statements gradually gives way to a broad, eight-voiced tutti. Whether the two choirs braved the logistical challenges of physical separation or merely sang in proximate alternation, the effect added great lustre to the Venetian liturgy.
[Activate subtitles to see the lyrics in Latin/English].
Picture: "Adoration of the Shepherds" (c. 1580) by the Italian painter Jacopo Bassano.
Source: tinyurl.com/2chnmus3
To check the score: tinyurl.com/28sw4xo7
Concerto Palatino & Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal conducted by Christopher Jackson.
I - 0:00
Gabrieli's "O magnum mysterium" was published in Volume I of "Concerti di Andrea et di Giovanni Gabrieli" in Venice on 1587, a volume mostly dedicated to the works of his uncle Andrea Gabrieli, but also includes Giovanni's first motets. These early works show much influence of his uncle's style in the use of dialogue and echo effects. In its original form, it is scored for eight voices separated in two groups of four. The first with a cantus, altus, tenor and bassus. The second for an altus, two tenors and a bassus. The text is drawn from the Matins of Christmas in the Roman Breviary.
Just as many European composers beat a trail to Venice to study with the renowned musicians there, the Venetian Giovanni Gabrieli’s earliest studies were with his uncle Andrea, at St Mark’s, before he travelled north to Munich to learn from the esteemed and influential Orlando de Lassus. Returning to Venice, he was appointed to St Mark’s as organist and subsequently, following his uncle’s death, as principal composer. Gabrieli's career rose further when he took the additional post of organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, another post he retained for his entire life. San Rocco was the most prestigious and wealthy of all the Venetian confraternities, and second only to San Marco itself in the splendour of its musical establishment.
The popular historical imagination has long nourished a fascination with the cori spezzati (split choir) traditions of Venice's San Marco Cathedral. Well-known complexities of this church's architecture provide numerous locations for the placement of musical ensembles: multiple choir lofts around the altar, elevated galleries, and even oversized, raised pulpits. Though more sober historical analysis has tempered earlier concepts of a nearly Berliozian disposition of performing forces in San Marco, several generations of Venetian musicians cultivated music that exploits the contrasts between antiphonal groups. The trend culminates in the splendid polychoral motets of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli.
"O magnum mysterium" consistently and classically counterpoises two contrasting vocal choirs while maintaining its elegant proportions. Gabrieli divides his text, which celebrates the lowliness of Christ's birth on Christmas, into three unequal parts; each receives a musical section of roughly equal length. The opening phrase, "O great mystery," is sung three times: once by the first choir, once by the slightly lower second choir, and a third time in climactic full polyphony. The second phrase of text, which explains that the great mystery and "wondrous sacrament" allowed mere animals to see the birth of the Saviour, takes the same tripartite structure, with a temporal broadening into triple rhythmic groups.
The composer packs the most text into the third section, which extols the manger and the blessed Virgin; twice Gabrieli cycles the contrasted vocal choirs, once aspirantly starting with the lower ensemble and rising to the heights. The choral antiphony becomes thus not only a vehicle for grand effect, but also serves to articulate the very structure of the text and to embody its sense. The radiant conclusion of his motet comes in a fourth section, an extended jubilant "alleluia." A series of syncopated, triple-meter antiphonal statements gradually gives way to a broad, eight-voiced tutti. Whether the two choirs braved the logistical challenges of physical separation or merely sang in proximate alternation, the effect added great lustre to the Venetian liturgy.
[Activate subtitles to see the lyrics in Latin/English].
Picture: "Adoration of the Shepherds" (c. 1580) by the Italian painter Jacopo Bassano.
Source: tinyurl.com/2chnmus3
To check the score: tinyurl.com/28sw4xo7
