Harpsichordist and conductor Francesco Corti leads a festive programme that unites three composers at the heart of the Venetian school and its international influence: Gabrieli, Schütz and Monteverdi.

Giovanni Gabrieli was the defining figure of the Venetian polychoral tradition, writing magnificent works for spatially-separated vocal and instrumental choirs that exploited the immense architecture of St Mark’s. His student, Heinrich Schütz, fused the grandeur and theatricality of this Venetian style with the Lutheran intimacy and theological intensity of his native Germany. And Monteverdi, who became maestro di cappella at St Mark’s not long after Gabrieli’s death, brought his unique sense of drama and emotional immediacy to Venice’s ceremonial musical tradition.

Taking the Christmas Eve services as our guide, this programme weaves together the psalms and grand Magnificat of Vespers with the Mass and instrumental sonatas for Midnight Mass. This music is the raison d’être of the Monteverdi Choir, and together with the specialist period-instrument players of the English Baroque Soloists, they will recreate the glorious sound-world of a seventeenth-century Venetian Christmas.

Alessandro Grandi

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Dec 17, 2026

Venetian Christmas · Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras

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