Giovanni Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian late-Renaissance and early-Baroque composer and organist whose polychoral works for the basilica of San Marco in Venice made him the central figure of the Venetian school and one of the most influential composers of the transition between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was born around 1554 or 1557 in Venice, the exact year disputed, and was raised in the household of his uncle Andrea Gabrieli, organist at San Marco and his principal teacher.

He spent the years from 1575 to 1579 in Munich at the court of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, where he studied with Orlando di Lasso. He returned to Venice in the early 1580s and in 1585 was appointed second organist at San Marco, succeeding his uncle as first organist in 1586. He held the post for the remainder of his life and was concurrently organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco from 1585.

His major publications include Sacrae symphoniae (1597) and the posthumous Symphoniae sacrae, liber secundus (1615), collections of motets and instrumental canzonas that exploited the spatial double-choir layout of San Marco and pioneered the explicit notation of dynamics and instrumentation. The 1597 Sonata pian' e forte is among the earliest published instrumental works to specify both dynamics and the precise instruments to be used.

His pupils included Heinrich Schütz, who studied with him in Venice from 1609 to 1612 and carried Venetian polychoral practice into German Lutheran music. Gabrieli died in Venice on August 12, 1612, of complications from kidney stones, and was buried at the Church of Santo Stefano. He was around 56 to 58 years old.

His name Giovanni is the Italian form of John, ultimately from the Hebrew Yochanan meaning "God is gracious." It has been the most common Italian masculine name for centuries, and he carried it as one of Venice's most-recognized composers.