This disc reissues music from two separate LPs of the late '70s, connected only by the use of a brass ensemble. It's quite a lurch from the Venetian Renaissance ensemble music heard on the first part of the disc to the Three Psalms for brass quintet and tenor voice of contemporary composer Peter Sacco at the end, but the Venetian performances themselves are interesting historical documents, representing a stage in the process by which the brass quintet, blaring its way through a couple of Gabrieli pieces at the beginning of a program of Sousa or Gershwin or the Beatles or what have you, became a fixture of the modern concert series. For in 1978, the ensemble music associated with St. Mark's cathedral was just beginning to become familiar. Other groups of brass players besides the set of San Francisco Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic players had experimented with them, but to the general public they were still fairly new. The historical-performance movement has transformed our vision of this.

Track Listing

Ricercar del duodecimo tono, for 4 parts
Canzon No. 6 a 4
Canzon vigesimaterza: Antiphon
Ricercar del sesto tono, for 4 parts
La Moranda
Canzona No 9 "La Battera" a 4
Canzoni da sonare...libro primo, No.21, a 2 canti, Canzon quarta, for instruments
Canzon No. 2, for 4 parts, C. 187
Canzon Vigesimaquarta XXIV a 8
Canzon 32 (a due cori)
Canzon No. 30 a 8
Canzon 26 "la Negrona"
Canzon No. 28 ("Sol sol la sol fa mi"), for 8 parts, C. 191
Canzoni da sonare...libro primo, No.29, due Canti, e Basso, Canzon quarta, for instruments
Psalms (3) for tenor & brass quintet