The polychoral style is associated in the minds of students and casual listeners with St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice and with style spawned by its house composer, Giovanni Gabrieli. But it was not restricted to that time and place. Roman churches invited the style, as well, and hearing the style as it developed in Rome helps the listener get away from an over-linear conception of the transition from Renaissance to Baroque -- the big, polychoral piece was one kind of music a late Renaissance composer might be called upon to ...
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The polychoral style is associated in the minds of students and casual listeners with St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice and with style spawned by its house composer, Giovanni Gabrieli. But it was not restricted to that time and place. Roman churches invited the style, as well, and hearing the style as it developed in Rome helps the listener get away from an over-linear conception of the transition from Renaissance to Baroque -- the big, polychoral piece was one kind of music a late Renaissance composer might be called upon to write, and even a "conservative" composer like Palestrina is represented here. (Indeed, one begins to wonder whether the huge spaces of Palestrina's music might benefit from performances making more variegated use of physical space.) Clarification of the textures is paramount here, and the 12-voice adult and mixed-gender Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal brilliantly succeeds. A group of that size results in a deployment with just one or two singers per part -- perhaps too small...
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