The big box sets from the Dutch label Brilliant sometimes sacrifice coherence for volume, but this one, originally released on the Archiv imprint, offers discrete performances that you couldn't get in a smaller release, and it's well worth the budget price. The contents are more specific than the title would indicate; you actually do get a reconstruction of a Vespers service from a presumably well-off Venetian church of the early seventeenth century, one well-off enough to mount performances with a full choir and an ...
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The big box sets from the Dutch label Brilliant sometimes sacrifice coherence for volume, but this one, originally released on the Archiv imprint, offers discrete performances that you couldn't get in a smaller release, and it's well worth the budget price. The contents are more specific than the title would indicate; you actually do get a reconstruction of a Vespers service from a presumably well-off Venetian church of the early seventeenth century, one well-off enough to mount performances with a full choir and an ensemble with viols, cornett, tenor and bass sackbutts, and a continuo group. Then there is an Easter mass, assembled according to the same principles, and finally, on disc five, a reconstruction of a concert given at the Venetian church of San Rocco in 1608, featuring exclusively music by Giovanni Gabrieli. This was ostensibly a secular concert, but one of the many insights the listener can take away from this project is that the rise of the Baroque language blurred the sacred/secular...
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