Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century

The most    spectacular impression  was made    not by  the singers but by  the massed  instrumentalists:

Sometimes   sixteen played  together    upon    their   instruments,    ten sackbuts,   four    cornetts,   and two violdegambas    of  an

extraordinary   greatness;  sometimes   ten,    six sackbuts    and four    cornetts;   sometimes   two,    a   cornett and a   treble  viol.   Of

these   treble  viols   [actually   violins,    most    likely] I   heard   three   several there,  whereof each    was so  good,   especially  one that    I

observed    above   the rest,   that    I   never   heard   the like    before.^9

For an idea of what these instrumentalists were playing, we can turn either to Giovanni Gabrieli’s
first book of Sacrae Symphoniae (1597), which contains sixteen canzonas, or to his last (posthumous)
publication, Canzoni et sonate a 3.5.6.7.8.10.12.14.15.&22. voci, per sonar con ogni sorte de
instrumenti, con il basso per l’organo (“Canzonas and other instrumental pieces for 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12,
14, 15, or 22 parts, to be played on all kinds of instruments, with a basso seguente for the organ”), printed
by Gardano in 1615. As the title already suggests, the contents of the later book cover a wide range of
styles, all reflected in Coryat’s descriptions.