Before leaving the field of church music of this period, something must be said of the worthy rival to the Roman school that had sprung up and flourished mightily in Venice. Here in the midst of the prosperity, luxury, and splendor of this cultured ‘Queen of the Seas’ was a group of earnest musicians who did not fear to loosen the bands of tradition or to accept new ideals and venture on untrodden paths that led in new directions; so that the products of the Venetian school, rather than the Roman, formed the natural bridge between the mediæval and modern conceptions of religious music. The masters of Venetian music, Willaert and the two Gabrielis, seemed to borrow for their music something of the brilliant coloring of the Venetian painters. Luxuriant harmonies, massive and bold chord-effects, the employment of numerous chromatic tones which assisted powerfully in changing the old modal system into the modern key system, a desire for greater sonority and contrast in color and expression--all these qualities, with their emphasis upon individual characterization, opposed themselves strikingly to the calmness, the delicacy, and the impersonality of the Palestrina style. All the great Venetian masters occupied the post of chapel-master at St. Mark’s, then one of the most important musical appointments in Europe. The use of several choirs, which was introduced by Adrian Willaert (about 1480-1562) and became a characteristic feature of Venetian church music, owed its origin to the architectural structure of this church, which contains two opposing choir lofts, each with its own organ. Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli added a third choir and with this elaborate mechanism produced unprecedented choral effects by ingenious groupings of voices, heard now as separate choirs, now in answering alternation, now as selected voices from each choir, and now in magnificent masses of tone. A twelve-part psalm, _Deus misereatur nostri_, written by G. Gabrieli (1557-1612) for three choirs--one consisting of deep voices, one of higher, and the third of the usual four parts--is one of the most imposing examples of this type of grandiose many-choired music. He is one of the few church composers who have left no masses. His most famous work, two volumes of _Sacræ Symphoniæ_, consisted of motets for from six to sixteen voices, to which he added free accompaniments written for various combinations of orchestral instruments with organ. In thus broadening the scope of church music to include instrumental groupings and effects in combination with voices, he stands as the pioneer of a dawning movement fraught with greatest possibilities for the future development of both ecclesiastical music and independent instrumental music. The chief work of Andrea Gabrieli (1510-1586), uncle of Giovanni, was, according to his own testimony, the six-part ‘Penitential Psalms,’ though this was outdone in magnificence and tonal beauty by his many compositions for several choirs.