A rare chance to hear some of the grand ceremonial motets and instrumental pieces for divided choirs written by Giovanni Gabrieli for St Mark’s and other Venetian institutions around 1600. They use up to four choirs with voices combined with cornett, sackbuts, dulcians, recorders, Renaissance flute, violin consort, theorboes and organs.

The second half of the concert celebrates Gabrieli’s influence in Germany around 1620, and includes Heinrich Schütz’s great four-choir setting of ‘Jauchzet dem Herrn’, published exactly 400 years ago, Johann Staden’s richly scored setting of ‘Duo Seraphim’, and Samuel Scheidt’s monumental setting of the chorale ‘Nun lob mein seel’, the prototype for later chorale cantatas up to Bach.