At this point, after two solo verses and two choral refrains, the instruments interrupt the proceedings
for a ceremonial proclamation of their own, marked Sinfonia to show that they have the stage, so to speak,
to themselves. After they have shown off their lips and tongues a bit with dotted rhythms and quick upbeat
figures in tiny note values that Gabrieli would have called semicrome (and that we call sixteenth-notes—
the first we’ve encountered!), the two remaining vocal soloists, alto and tenor, join them for the next
verse. Another aspect of concertato writing—the one that has become primary over the years—emerges
when the singers begin vying in virtuosity with the cornetti, semicrome and all. The verse is capped, by
now predictably, with the choral Alleluia ritornello, but now the chorus trades off not with one singer but
with two, backed up by the full instrumental choir.
The fourth verse ventures yet another combination, pitting soprano against bass over the continuo in a
duel of semicrome and smart dotted rhythms. The chorus enters on schedule with its ritornello. And now,
with only one verse to go, Gabrieli pulls out all the stops: the full three-choir tutti is heard for the first
time, and to magnify the sublime effect the composer adds some chromatic “madrigalian” harmony, thus
combining both techniques of Counter Reformation church-militant bravura in a single irresistible
onslaught, to defeat the reasoning mind by overwhelming the senses. The peak is reached when the vocal
soloists pour on the virtuosity atop the massed sonority. The final ritornello, needless to say, maintains the
tutti to the end, reinforcing the sense of arrival by twice repeating the final cadence, capped by the
cornetti at the brilliant high end of their range.
What remains to be said after that? Only this: Like any church composer of his time, Gabrieli, who not
only studied with his uncle Andrea but also worked for a time in his twenties alongside Lasso in Munich,
would have traced his musical ancestry back to the Netherlands—to Willaert, to Mouton, and ultimately,
somewhere in the distance, to Josquin des Prez. And yet what is left of their style in his? To see how far
behind he has left the ars perfecta we need only take note of one amazing fact: from the beginning of this
monster motet to the end, there has been not a single point of imitation. There are motives that pass from
voice to voice, all right, especially in the vocal soloists’ parts. But never are these motives combined into
a continuous interwoven fabric; instead, they are forever being tossed back and forth like sonic
projectiles, heightening a sense of agitated contrast rather than one of calm commingling.
Further, and to the same general point, the aspect of virtuosity, of executive skill on display, places a
new emphasis on the act of performance and its public, hortatory aspect. In a word, the act of making