Giovanni Gabrielli (1554-1612)

Introduction
Giovanni Gabrielli is a composer and organ player. He was born in Venice circa 1554-1557. Not much is known about his childhood except that he was living in venice and studying music. He left Venice to study in Munich with Orlando de Lassus who was a big influence on Gabrielli's musical style. When he returned to Venice aroound 1955 he was employed as the primary organist at Saint Mark's Basillica. A year later his uncle, who was the primary composer, passed away and Gabrielli took his place too. Later, he became the organist for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco where he stayed for the rest of his life and firmly establishing his musical career.

Works
In 1608 he wrote ''Canzone per Sonare. ''This piece has a lot of predictable that reminds me a lot of counterpoint. It sounds almost like renaissance music.

Comparisons
Gabrielli was an innovator of music. He organized his pieces by Chapters before composers started to use op. I could compare him to his teacher, Lassus, because he adopted some of his styles. However, Gabrielli was such a pioneer I think he could only be compared to those who came after him and adopted his techniques.

Observations
Although Gabrielli composed in many musical forms, much of his music is religious music. This makes sense as his primary jobs were composing and performing for highly sacred churches in venice. The majority of his compositions were written for San Marco and  Scuola Grande di San Rocco. He shaped the music that would be played in these church halls and also shaped music in general during this time period.