Gabrieli's music is clearly the best-known Italian instrumental ensemble music of the era, Venetian late-Renaissance style transforming ever-so-slightly into the Baroque. Too often, it is the more "showy" pieces which are given preference, but in his later writing, Gabrieli adopts a more sophisticated and reposeful tone. This is especially true of his posthumous 1615 set, which offers something of a summation of Renaissance style.
The present program includes a good combination of items, although I would prefer a program of the 1615 set alone.
The performances themselves are superlative, from conception to execution. They maintain a balance between grandeur and intimacy, and capture much of the acoustic emphasis impressively. The performances stand out very clearly as the best for these works.
Todd M. McComb