Massimo Palombella, Sistine Chapel Choir - Veni Domine: Advent & Christmas at the Sistine Chapel (2017)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 271 Mb | Total time: 64:36 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | 479 7524 GH | Recorded: 2017
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 271 Mb | Total time: 64:36 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | 479 7524 GH | Recorded: 2017
The Sistine Chapel Choir were quite late to the recording scene, but they are making up for lost time under director Massimo Palombella. The strengths of the choir's performances on this holiday release are threefold. First of all is the sound environment of the chapel itself, resonant and big, yet hospitable to dense polyphony since Josquin was a choirboy there. Josquin appears on the program here, but the motet Missus est Gabriel is not a common work, and that points to the choir's second strength: they work from a manuscript tradition, that of the Vatican, that is different from the set of scholarly publications that have long shaped the Renaissance performing repertory, and several pieces here are world premieres, or otherwise seldom heard.
