Lo Sposalizio - Various Composers

From the eleventh century, Venetian mariners gathered together once each year to offer prayers to San Nicol�, the patron saint of sailors, asking for his continued protection. Initially the service was a simple benediction in which the Adriatic Sea was blessed with holy water. By the late-sixteenth century the ceremony had evolved into one of the most lavish and important dates in the Venetian calendar. Ascension Day now launched a large spring festival which was headed by the symbolic wedding of Venice to the Adriatic�the Sposalizio.Robert King and his serried ranks of instrumentalists and singers recreate this glorious event in the grandest style. Giovanni Gabrieli's twenty-two-part Sonata (his largest-scale instrumental work), Andrea Gabrieli's 'Battle' Canzona, the church bells of Venice, fanfares for trumpets and drums, the massive sixteen-part madrigal Udite, chiari�the catalogue of riches goes on �