This bold and colourful work comes from Grillo’s Sacri Concentus ac Symphoniae, published in Venice in 1618. Like the Canzon Secunda ↣ already printed in this series, it exploits to the full the dramatic effect of a high choir incorporating virtuosic figuration in the two top parts, presumably intended for cornetts or violins, with a more sombre and slow-moving low choir. Unusually, the lower choir is labelled “Primo Choro”: this makes sense in that the work begins with a substantial section for the low instruments.
Probably the most strikingly original of Grillo’s pieces.
(Bernard Thomas – 1993)
