Palestrina - Choral Works, volume 1
The Sixteen / Christophers
Coro COR16091

Release date June 2011

This is the first volume in The Sixteen’s long-term project to honour Palestrina’s great art. They won’t record every note (Palestrina wrote 104 masses!), but will programme each volume around a single mass and theme relevant to that mass, alongside some of Palestrina’s settings of the Song of Songs, that part of the Old Testament often considered too sensual and erotic to be read. Palestrina apologised for lavishing his art on such corruptingverses as these texts (“I blush, and I am sad”). Volume 1 is built around the Missa Assumpta est Maria, which is based mostly on musical material from the 6-part motet of that name. It is Palestrina at his best – soaring lines allied to rich sonorities, flawlessly performed by a choir that has his music in their blood, the music given ample space to breathe by Christophers. The settings from the Song of Songs demonstrate that curious paradox present in much of Palestrina’s music: how music written according to the academic dictates of polyphony can be transformed into something ecstatic and sublime. The disc is book-ended by a powerful setting of the Salve Regina and a moving Ave Maria. This series will be required listening for lovers of Palestrina’s music.

Reviewed by Anne McAlister