CORO CORO Allegri: Miserere PALESTRINA Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli Pierluigi Giovanni da “Christophers draws brilliant performances from his singers, both technically assured and vividly impassioned.” THE GUARDIAN cor16014 Music from the Sistine Chapel Allegri, Anerio, Palestrina, Marenzio GRAMOPHONE EDITOR'S CHOICE “Surprises and rarities abound here...a daring journey of discovery.” GRAMOPHONE cor16047 Hail, Mother of the Redeemer “Sumptuous…Victoria could apply himself equally to the sublime contemplation of Sancta Maria and to the jubilant fervour of the Magnificat, a range of expression that The Sixteen embraces.” THE TELEGRAPH cor16088 Claudio Monteverdi Selva morale e spirituale Vol.I “These are some of the most spirited and individual performances of this repertory available.” BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE cor16087 Giovanni Pierluigi Giovanni da PALESTRINA volume To find out more about The Sixteen, concert tours, and to buy CDs visit cor16091 www.thesixteen.com 1 Giovanni Pierluigi da volume 1 104 masses! But what we are doing is presenting each volume based around PALESTRINA a single mass and theme relevant to that mass, in this case the Assumption, alongside some of his settings of the Song of Songs. Palestrina published 29 such settings. He apologised for possessing “light and vain ideas” and indeed Palestrina’s legacy and impact on “blushed and grieved” at presenting these sensual motets. Remember that the sacred music worldwide is second Song of Songs comes from that part of the Old Testament which was often to none. Composers through the considered too sensual and erotic to be read. It was originally Hebrew love centuries have studied and learnt poetry, written down possibly 300 years or so before the birth of Christ, but from his gift for writing exquisite these are texts which in Renaissance times were used in praise of the Virgin Mary. polyphony. Small wonder then that he has been called not only “the I have always regarded Palestrina as the master craftsman whose music hotograph: Marco Borggreve Marco hotograph: prince and father of music” but also P composers of all ages have attempted to emulate. He shapes his music in a “the saviour of church music”. At the beautifully sonorous way using a lot of suspensions but always coming back into final session of the Council of Trent, the line of the music. However it is this perfect craftsmanship that can sometimes there were many discussions about make Palestrina’s music sound all too perfect and occasionally academic. the use of polyphony and whether or We have attempted to achieve real ebb and flow in his music, not clipping not it should be banned. In 1607, the the ends of phrases but allowing the music to breathe, to convey the real composer Agostino Agazzari wrote meaning of the words and making our breaths part of the music as a whole. “music of the older kind is no longer There is a wealth of word painting in which to indulge, especially in his Song of in use because of the confusion and Babel of the words”. He went on to say that Songs motets. Our aim has been to be sensitive to this wonderful poetry and this music would have come very near to being banished from the holy church inject an energy and beauty into our performances that I hope goes some way by a sovereign pontiff had not Giovanni Palestrina found the remedy. to honour Palestrina as “the celebrated light of music”. This is the first volume in our long-term project to honourP alestrina’s great art. I hasten to add that we are not endeavouring to record every note Palestrina penned - that would be more than a lifetime’s work considering he wrote 2 3 Giovanni Pierluigi da volume PALESTRINA (1525-1594) 1 Giovanni PierluiGi da Palestrina Music in praise of the virgin 1 Salve Regina 6.22 iovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, holder Papae Marcelli (probably Palestrina’s 2 Assumpta est Maria a 6 (Motet) 6.23 Gof the most prestigious musical best known work today) was written positions in the Roman Catholic Church, specifically in accord with the Council of Missa assuMPta est Maria was by his death in 1594 regarded as the Trent’s admonition that polyphonic church 3 Kyrie 4.48 greatest composer of his time. If Helen music should present the text clearly; 4 Gloria 5.00 of Troy was “the face that launched a and how this Mass therefore convinced a thousand ships”, in the centuries after his committee of Cardinals not to abandon 5 Credo 7.05 death Palestrina was the composer who polyphony in favour of Gregorian chant in 6 Sanctus 2.26 7 launched a thousand myths, and uniquely, the celebration of the Liturgy. It is true that Benedictus 2.22 even a full-length Romantic opera, Hans the Sistine Diaries record the singers of 8 Agnus Dei I & II 5.16 Pfitzner’s Musikalische Legende: Palestrina. the Papal Chapel assembling in the house He was portrayed, erroneously, as the of a Cardinal Vitelli on the 28th April, 1565, 9 Ave Regina caelorum 4.29 archetypical solitary, tortured genius, to sing some music, including Masses, the perfector, even the originator, of to test whether the words could be sonG of sonGs: nos. 9-11 the “true” polyphonic style of the Late understood, “as their eminences desire”. bl Tota pulchra es, amica mea 2.28 Renaissance, which was the basis for the This Mass could have been sung then; bm Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea 3.10 subsequent progressive development however, it is very probable that the Mass bn Sicut lilium inter spinas 3.49 and improvement of Music, and as the was written to celebrate the accession composer responsible for the “salvation” of Marcellus II in 1555 (he was Pope for a bo Diffusa est gratia 3.35 of church music. mere three weeks); and in style it simply reflects the general changes taking bp Assumpta est Maria a 5 (Offertory) 2.24 Palestrina’s first biographer, the place in Palestrina’s music and in that bq Ave Maria 4.27 imaginative Abbé Giuseppe Baini, writing of his contemporaries at that period. Total running time 64.10 in 1828, offers the story that the Missa We have the advantage today of being 4 5 familiar with the music of Palestrina’s there was an ever expanding market in praise of the Virgin, favoured by In light of this, Palestrina’s dedication of the predecessors (among them Josquin des for music books, of madrigals and other composers, even into our own times. Motettorum Quinque Vocibus Liber Quartus Près, Morales, Gombert, Festa, Animuccia) secular music, and religious music too, Originally Hebrew love poetry, it was ex Canticis Salomonis to Gregory XIII is and contemporaries, such as Lassus, which had to be suitable for any kind of written down maybe 300 years before the of interest to us. The dedication begins: the Anerio and Nanino brothers and singing group, accessible to the average birth of Christ, and has since been read ‘There are far too many poems with no other Victoria. And we can see how church man on the street. by Jews and Christians alike as a religious subject than love of a kind quite alien to the music changed over the century, with a allegory, despite its eroticism, in the Christian Faith’, (“Extant nimis multarum tendency towards higher voicings, simpler Palestrina’s four books of Madrigals, Roman Catholic Liturgy a description of poetarum carmina ...”). Palestrina goes on vocal lines, and greater clarity of the text, published in 1555, 1581, 1586 and 1594, the love between Christ and the Church, to apologise for having lavished his art on partly influenced, it must be admitted, by were a contribution to this market, with Mary and her Son, or the faithful and such things and for having associated with the reforms of the Councils of Trent, which some success, for the first book was Mary; or as St. John of the Cross alludes others corrupted by such passions (‘I would created a need for new music for revised reprinted no less than eight times by to it: “the exercise of love between the Soul have been of their number, and I blush, and and now standardised texts. 1605. The 1594 volume was of Madrigali and Jesus Christ, its Spouse”. I am sad...’, “... ex eo numero aliquandi fuisse Spirituali and served the same sort of me, et erubesco, et doleo...”). But there were other factors at work purpose as his fourth book of Motets of Yet it was hazardous territory for any as well, not least the improvements 1583/84, (on texts from The Song of Songs), who sought to go beyond the approved For this Palestrina has been accused of in printing technology throughout which was so successful that it had no less Latin version of the texts. Fray Luis de hypocrisy by some commentators; at the 16th century, which made printed than 11 reprints up to 1613. One of the León, a Spaniard, was imprisoned for the very least he was ambivalent. A man music books cheaper; and the rise of a results of the Counter Reformation was translating The Song into Castilian. Both of the world, and not without business monied middle-class, an educated laity, the popularisation of informal devotions St. Teresa of Ávila and St. John of the acumen, he had been married since 1547 who bought not only Books of Hours, and observances outside the services of Cross were persecuted for their ecstatic to one Lucrezia Gori, with three sons born but volumes of polyphonic music, for the Church. St. Philip Neri (b. Florence, writings. In Teresa’s case, she had to burn ca.1549, 1551 and 1558, two of them dying extra-liturgical activities, for personal 1515, d.