GIOVANNI

GABRIELI (1557-1612?)  , Italian musical composer, was born at Venice in 1557, and was a pupil of his uncle Andrea, a distinguished musician of the contrapuntal school and organist of St Mark's . He succeeded Claudio Merulo as first organist of the Same church in 1585, and died at Venice either in 1612 or 1613 . He was remarkable for his compositions for several choirs,. writing frequently for 12 or 16 voices, and is important as an early experimenter in chromatic harmony . It was probably for this reason that he made a special point of combining voices with instruments, being thus one of the founders of choral and orchestral composition . Among his pupils was Heinrich Schutz; and the church of St Mark, from the time of the Gabrielis onwards down to that of Lotti, became one of the most important musical schools in Europe . See also Winterfeld, Johann Gabrieli and seine Zeit (1834) .