Palestrina: Ave Maria

2011 sees the first recording by The Sixteen devoted entirely to Palestrina.

The disc marks the start of a new project which will result in a series of new recordings exploring a selection of the composer’s vast output, and a Choral Pilgrimage tour.

Palestrina was born in 1525 not far from Rome, in the town whose name he bore and from which we take the cover images for this new series of discs. Possibly the greatest composer of liturgical music of all time, Palestrina was a towering figure in Renaissance polyphony. Choral singers world-wide will know his Missa Papae Marcelli (recorded by The Sixteen on COR16014) as, without doubt, it is the most renowned of Palestrina’s works and possibly the most famous mass of all time.

On this new disc The Sixteen has recorded some of the sumptuous music he wrote for the Assumption including his Missa Assumpta est Maria and Salve Regina. Without doubt, Palestrina was the great master of all Papal composers and his spiritual craft and harmonic vitality fulfilled the needs of the Vatican. His motets for the Assumption also entitled Assumpta est Maria, are glorious examples of such work and can be heard in all their splendour on this recording.

By his death in 1594, Palestrina had published a huge amount of music including over 100 Masses and over 350 motets.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c1525-1594), took his name from the small town in the Sabine Hills about 25 miles from Rome where he was born. He was the eldest of four children of reasonably well-off parents and went to S. Maria Maggiore in Rome as a choirboy and even remained there after his voice broke. In 1544 he returned to Palestrina as organist and singing teacher but in 1551 he joined the town’s Bishop, who had been elected Pope, in Rome. A mass dedicated to his patron won him a place in the Papal Choir of the Sistine Chapel in 1554 but a year later his patron died and a successor, Paul IV, threw all the married men out of the choir and that included Palestrina. It was in 1561 that the appointment of maestro at S. Maria Maggiore, where he had been a choirboy, gave him the security he needed and his fame as a composer rose consistently thereafter. In all he wrote 104 settings of the mass and 375 motets, this collection, sung by the choir of King’s College in Cambridge, includes four of the most famous masses as well as six motets.

Anthologie is a disc of Gregorian chants, motets and renaissance music sung by the Choir of the Fathers of the Abbaye de Saint-Michel. The selection of music on this album gives a glimpse of the beauty of the music sung by the Abbey over the last 50 years.

No other month has been depicted in music and poetry so frequently as May.

This selection of dance movements, variation works, and Marian music from the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the early Baroque, offers a “diletto musicale” of this so fruitful month, and was recorded in the small tower chapel of St. Martin’s Church in Medelsheim, Saarland.

A definitive collection of settings of the ancient Prayer to Mary, beautifully sung by the boys and men’s choir of the London Oratory School Schola.

A compendium of different styles showing how composers across the ages have approached setting these most famous words.

Settings ranging from the fifteenth century to the present day.

The Schola has quickly established itself as a leading boys’ choir, singing a large and varied repertoire, encompassing sacred and secular works from early to contemporary music. It performs regularly with the major London orchestras and national opera companies, has made numerous film soundtracks, (the boys are the voices behind the double platinum award winning soundtracks of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).