Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist born around 1554–1557 in Venice and died there in 1612, celebrated as the culminating figure of the Venetian School at the threshold between Renaissance and Baroque. Likely trained by his uncle, composer Andrea Gabrieli, he also studied in Munich with Orlande de Lassus before returning to Venice, where in 1585 he became principal organist of St Mark’s Basilica and, after his uncle’s death, principal composer there as well. He also held a lifelong post as organist at the wealthy Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Exploiting St Mark’s unique architecture, Gabrieli pioneered dynamic markings, specified instrumentation, and grand spatially separated choirs, publishing his influential Sacrae symphoniae in 1597.

Gabrieli’s polychoral innovations, notated dynamics, and idiomatic instrumental writing, exemplified in In Ecclesiis and the Sonata pian’ e forte, effectively defined the early Baroque stile concertato. Students who traveled to study with him, including Heinrich Schütz, carried his grand Venetian style north into Germany, seeding the great German Baroque tradition that culminated in Bach. He is regarded as a pivotal bridge composer whose sonic experiments reshaped sacred and instrumental music across Europe.

Sources:

• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Gabrieli