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By the beginning of the 16th century, Venice was in commercial decline, and the financial clout of the first and longest-lived of the European Empires was fading. However, just as the Republic’s political power was starting to ebb, artistic and cultural life began to flourish as never before. Venice became the centre of the cultural world. Over the course of this week, Donald Macleod explores this extraordinary period when music flourished throughout Venice’s streets and in the churches, palaces and public buildings which had sprung up all across the city, and the composers whose work came to define the age – the Venetian School.

In Tuesday’s programme, Donald explores the influence of Venice’s patron saint – St. Mark – on the music making in the republic, with a host of music dedicated to the Saint. He also examines music-making in the state church of the republic – the basilica of St. Mark’s – and the impact of the 35-year reign of its director of music, Adrien Willaert.

Adrien Willaert
Lauda Jersusalem Dominum
Collegium Vocale e Strumentale Euterpe
Antonio Eros Negri, director

Claudio Merulo
Cumque beatissimus Marcus Evangelista
Quoniam Ensemble

Adrien Willaert
Vespro della beata Vergine: Dixit Dominus
Capilla Flamenca

Cipriano de Rore
De le belle contrade d’oriente
Consort of Musicke
Anthony Rooley, director

Jacques Buus
Recarcare
Klaus Eichhorn, organ

Giovanni Bassano
Deus qui beatum Marecum
His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts
Gentlemen of the Chappell
Peter Bassano, conductor

Giovanni Bassano
La rose (after Willaert)
La Guilde des Mercenaires
Adrien Mabire, director

Cipriano De Rore
Missa Praeter rerum seriem excerpt – Credo and Sanctus & Benedictus
Huelgas Ensemble
Paul van Nevel, conductor