Born in 1556, Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer who worked for Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice. During his time there he composed works for separate choirs for vocal and instrumental performers. One of his most famous pieces comes from his Sacrae Symphoniae completed in 1597; the Sonata Pian e Forte. Gabrieli was both a composer and organist in the transitional period of the Renaissance and Baroque, which allowed elements of both periods to be demonstrated in his compositions. As instrumental music became more and more popular, it became quite common at this time to have a composer who also played an instrument, particularly the piano or organ. The Sonata Pian e Forte became famous as a work demonstrating some features and ideas about sound that had not previously been seen or often used. “Sonata” at this time referred to instrumental music while “pian” means soft and “forte” means loud. The title of the work indicates that it is an instrumental work with soft and loud sections. Gabrieli's composition is special because it is the first to show dynamic marks in an overall context. Some sources will say that this is the first piece to describe dynamics in general, but other sources provide evidence that dynamic indications appear in solo literature composed decades before. “A deeper knowledge of music shows that it [the dynamics] also has an emotional function, for it occurs so irregularly that the listener never knows whether he will be overwhelmed by the sound, or whether he will have to strain the ear to hear a more subdued sentence. .” Gabrieli felt that dynamics can help describe or shift the audience's perception of a musical pattern toward a particular mood. In the Sonata Pian e Forte, there are two parts...... middle of paper ...... excel. “G. Gabrieli Sonata Pian' e Forte. June 6, 2012. Accessed April 24, 2014. http://www.edexcel.com/migrationdocuments/GCE%20New%20GCE/Unit-6-14-G-Gabrieli.pdf.Gabrieli, Giovanni. Sacrae Symphoniae: Sonata Pian e Forte. London: Brass Wind Publications, 1996. M886.G119 S13Gabrieli, Giovanni. Sacrae Symphoniae: Sonata Pian e Forte. John Wallace, Simon Wright and the Wallace Collection. Simon Wright. Nimbus Records NI5236, 2012. Streaming audio. http://naxosmusiclibrary.com.Harman, Alec and Anthony Milner. Music of the late Renaissance and Baroque. London: Barrie Books LTD., 1959. ML193.H37 Schulenberg, David. Baroque music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. ML193.S38 2001 c.2Britannica Footnote: Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, sv “Giovanni Gabrieli”, accessed May 4, 2014, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/223235/ Giovanni-Gabrieli.