Composer: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Performer: The Sixteen
Conductor: Harry Christophers
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Coro
Release: 2019
Size: 1.23 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Ego sum panis vivus
02. Fratres ego enim accepi
03. Accepit Jesus calicem
Missa Fratres ego enim accepi
04. Kyrie
05. Gloria
06. Credo
07. Sanctus
08. Benedictus
09. Agnus Dei
10. Caro mea vere est cibus
11. Pater noster
12. Sacerdotes Domini
Song of Songs: Nos. 25-27
13. Quam pulchri sunt gressus tui
14. Duo ubera tua
15. Quam pulchra es
16. Victimae paschali laudes
17. Pange lingua
Palestrina had a vast impact on the development of music. Hugely famous in his day, his reputation and influence grew even more following his death and his work can be seen as a summation of Renaissance polyphony. His musical legacy is prodigious even by the standards of the time—he wrote over 100 masses—and he was the first Renaissance composer to have a complete edition of almost his whole output published in modern notation. The eighth recording in The Sixteen’s celebrated series focuses on the Last Supper and the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at the first Easter and includes the Missa Fratres ego enim accepi. Three settings from the Song of Songs also feature.
The Sixteen, and leader Harry Christophers, have strong-selling, broadly appealing items galore in their catalog, and it is noteworthy to see the group undertake a project with less commercial potential, an ongoing series of music by Palestrina. The series began in the mid-2010s and here reaches its eighth volume. Palestrina is a composer for whom the same few works seem to be recorded over and over, and any complete picture of the classicizing phase of late Renaissance polyphony should include a broader picture of his works. Christophers has made good selections all around (this is not a complete edition of Palestrina, for such a thing would be impractical), and he has tended to arrange his programs according to liturgical use, and the music here is centered on the Easter season, and especially on the “Last Supper.” The central Missa fratres ego enim accepi is a parody mass based on the motet of the same name (translated as “Brothers, I have received [from the Lord]”). The motet is also included, although, curiously, not adjacent to the mass. This Easter music tends to have a sparseness that suits the choir size well (there are actually 18 singers, not 16). Sample the Credo of the mass, which approaches its central Incarnatus in a beautifully subtle way. The mass tends to elaborate its motet model melodically rather than polyphonically, and the textures are limpid; in Christophers’ performance, the music has its desired intimate quality and seems to breathe. There are also, as in Vol. 7 of this series, three settings from the Song of Songs, an exceptionally interesting part of Palestrina’s output in which he attempted to live down his youthful flirtations with secular music. Recommended, fine Eastertime listening.