Gabrieli was a prolific composer of High Renaissance music in Venice, where he was organist at St. Mark’s Cathedral for 20 years. Well known for his choral works, he was one of the first orchestrators of instrumental music, and his polychoral compositions are popular among brass instrumentalists to this day. The canzona form, which first appeared in the 1570's, evolved from Franco-Flemish chansons. Canzoni were very popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and eventually became the sonata form. Like other Gabrieli works, the Canzon duodecimi toni is characterized by contrasts – of space, of high and low voices, and of dynamics. --James Huff 21:22, March 25, 2007 (EDT) (from the program notes of The Claremont Winds, submitted with permission)