Palestrina Volume 3
The Sixteen, Harry Christophers
The opening sequence, Stabat Mater, shows just what is admirable about this choir and the direction it receives...every ounce of implied drama, of unsettled feeling, and of deep reflection is...
Palestrina Volume 3
The Sixteen, Harry Christophers
Purchase product
The opening sequence, Stabat Mater, shows just what is admirable about this choir and the direction it receives...every ounce of implied drama, of unsettled feeling, and of deep reflection is...
About
A towering figure in Renaissance polyphony, Palestrina is arguably one of the greatest composers of Liturgical music of all time. Harry Christophers and The Sixteen continue their exploration of his work with a disc of music for the Easter period.
Many of the works on this new recording celebrate the joyful part of Easter - the Resurrection - and the central mass on this disc is the wonderfully inspired Missa Regina caeli. The Mass is based on the well-known, immediately recognisable, plainchant Antiphon Regina caeli and the recording also includes the 8-voice motet of the same name.
As with volumes 1 and 2 this disc also includes three of Palestrina’s settings of the Song of Songs alongside three offertories for the Easter period and the hymn Ad caenam agni providi.
This disc would not be complete, however, without the exquisite 8-voice Stabat Mater - possibly Palestrina’s most famous piece in current times and a work that emphasises the other side of the Easter story - the agony and pain of the Crucifixion.
A number of the works from Palestrina Volume 3 will feature in The Choral Pilgrimage 2013 alongside Miserere settings by Allegri and MacMillan (both of which are available on the CORO label).
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
May 2013
The opening sequence, Stabat Mater, shows just what is admirable about this choir and the direction it receives...every ounce of implied drama, of unsettled feeling, and of deep reflection is brought to bear on a performance of superbly crafted form, nuanced dynamics, overlapping phrasing and effortless tuning...as The Sixteen get into this series they are warming to their task.
May 2013
in this style of interpreting Palestrina, The Sixteen are sensitive and remarkably assured….The Sixteen's Palestrina cycle may just be a classic in the making.
July/August 2013
It is in the Song of Songs we find The Sixteen and Chirstophers at their most subtly beguiling...[the Missa Regina coeli] is another very fine performance, singers and conductor responding to the great variety inherent in both text and music with a kind of relaxed energy
17th February 2013
[the Missa Regina Caeli is] given a polished, carefully paced and highly sensitive reading here. The singers invest as much emotional intensity in one of the two double-choir polyphonic settings of the antiphon as they do in the rest of the set.
17th March 2013
The subject – the grieving mother at the foot of the cross – is all the more anguished in this unadorned double-choir setting, sung with full, pure tone and welcome momentum...The Sixteen have their own divine qualities, generously on display here.
