Venetian polychoral style

The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation. It represented a major stylistic shift from the prevailing polyphonic writing of the middle Renaissance, and was one of the major stylistic developments which led directly to the formation of what we now know as the Baroque style. A commonly encountered term for the separated choirs is cori spezzati—literally, separated choirs.

Representative composers

• Adrian Willaert
• Cipriano de Rore
• Gioseffo Zarlino
• Claudio Merulo
• Giovanni Gabrieli
• Andrea Gabrieli
• Claudio Monteverdi