Cherubim
Music Trust
(Charity No: 1088403)

A charming piece that shows Gabrieli foreshadowing the constructional techniques of the later baroque. The title is akin to the use of the word Invention – which meant a discovery of a musical possibility within the notes & patterns rather than something that was the product of spontaneous imagination. This piece prefigures the invention of the Fugue as a form. Here Gabrieli uses a very simple motto or theme, heard at the beginning, which he brings back 15 times as a unifying device. He doesn’t vary the tonality because since he was working in meantone temperament and at that stage noone had yet grasped the idea of modulation to different keys. So what we see here is a wonderful jewel in its native form.