The Sixteen, long almost the official choral ensemble of Britain's middlebrow Classic FM radio network, could easily have been forgiven for simply resting on its considerable tonal sheen and recording of more or less the same album of British favorites over and over. Instead, the group has embarked on a series of Palestrina recordings that are both freshly conceived and downright gorgeous. The novel component in the programs is the presence of Palestrina's masses, up to now a generally neglected part of his output. They ...
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The Sixteen, long almost the official choral ensemble of Britain's middlebrow Classic FM radio network, could easily have been forgiven for simply resting on its considerable tonal sheen and recording of more or less the same album of British favorites over and over. Instead, the group has embarked on a series of Palestrina recordings that are both freshly conceived and downright gorgeous. The novel component in the programs is the presence of Palestrina's masses, up to now a generally neglected part of his output. They turn out to be entirely different in concept and sound from his spacious, rich motets, and this volume has an especially intriguing example: one of two examples of a Missa L'homme armé that Palestrina wrote. The tradition of organizing a mass around this little tune in the tenor voice was well over a century old by the time Palestrina came to it, and some might think it would have been played out by then. Not so! Palestrina's mass is both fearsomely learned and rather playful. The...
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