Latest from The Sixteen

Program: #20-27 Air Date: Jun 22, 2020

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The great English ensemble continues with Volume 8 of their Palestrina cycle, music from Rome in the 16th century, and the latest in the series of recordings dedicated to Henry Purcell.

NOTE: All of the music on this program is from the ensemble The Sixteen directed by Harry Christophers. For more information: https://thesixteen.com/

I. Palestrina: Volume 8. Coro CD COR 16175.

Palestrina Volume 8. Album by The Sixteen

Palestrina had a vast impact on the development of music. Hugely famous in his day, his reputation and influence grew even more following his death and his work can be seen as a summation of Renaissance polyphony. His musical legacy is prodigious even by the standards of the time—he wrote over 100 masses—and he was the first Renaissance composer to have a complete edition of almost his whole output published in modern notation.

The eighth recording in The Sixteen’s celebrated series focuses on the Last Supper and the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at the first Easter and includes the Missa Fratres ego enim accepi. Three settings from the Song of Songs also feature.

1. Ego sum panis vivus

2. Fratres ego enim accepi

3. Accepit Jesus calicem

Missa Fratres ego enim accepi

4. Kyrie

5. Gloria

6. Credo

7. Sanctus

8. Benedictus

9. Agnus Dei

10. Caro mea vere est cibus

11. Pater noster

12. Sacerdotes Domini

Song of Songs: Nos. 25-27

13. Quam pulchri sunt gressus tui

14. Duo ubera tua

15. Quam pulchra es

16. Victimae paschali laudes

17. Pange lingua

II. The Call of Rome. Coro CD COR16178.

Rome – the ‘Eternal’ City. Once the capital of a republic and empire which defined the Western world in ancient times and left indelible imprints thereafter both physically and spiritually. A city of unparalleled beauty, a source of learning, and a capital of the arts which has inspired countless pilgrimages. A city which motivated the composers on this album to create some of their finest works including one of the most famous pieces of choral music ever written – Allegri’s Miserere.

This album concentrates on that call to Rome which was irresistible for the Flemish composer, Josquin, and the Spaniard, Victoria. Here they sit alongside Felice Anerio and Gregorio Allegri who spent their lives in Rome in the service of the Papal chapels.

Plainsong
1. De Lamentatione

Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)
Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday 1-6
2. Recessit pastor noster
3. O vos omnes
4. Ecce quomodo moritur iustus
5. Astiterunt reges
6. Aestimatus sum
7. Sepulto Domino

Josquin Desprez (c.1452-1521)
8. Pater noster / Ave Maria

Felice Anerio (1560-1614)
9. Litaniae Beatissimae Virginis Mariae

Josquin
10. Gaude virgo mater Christi

Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652)
11. Gloria from Missa In lectulo meo

Josquin
12. Illibata Dei virgo

Allegri
13. Miserere - its evolution

Anerio
14. Regina caeli laetare a8

Victoria
15. Salve Regina a8

III. Henry Purcell: Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II, Volume II. Coro CD COR16173.

Purcell: Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II, Volume II. Album by The Sixteen

King Charles II liked to project a strong, stable, divinely legitimated image. Whilst that image had no basis in reality, the scale of his deception and financial skulduggery did not emerge until 19th-century historians discovered secret treaty documents between Charles and King Louis XIV of France. Purcell had no idea of course, and so all of the music on this album celebrates the political triumphs that he and his colleagues thought they had witnessed. It includes the quite brilliant Welcome Songs 'Welcome to all the pleasures' (with its superb six-part fanfares to St Cecilia in the final chorus) and 'From hardy climes’.

1. Hear my prayer, O Lord Z15

2. O solitude, my sweetest choice Z406

3. Lord, how long wilt Thou be angry Z25

4. Pavan of Four Parts in G minor Z752

5. Plung'd in the confines of despair Z142

WELCOME SONG: Welcome to all the pleasures Z339

6. Symphony

7. Welcome to all the pleasures

8. Here the deities approve

9. While joys celestial

10. Beauty, thou scene of love

11. In a consort of voices

12. In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust Z16

13. From silent shades and the Elysian groves Z370

14. Catch: Of all the instruments that are Z263

WELCOME SONG: From hardy climes and dangerous toils of war Z325

15. Symphony

16. From hardy climes

17. As fame, great Sir

18. Wake then, my muse!

19. The sparrow and the gentle dove

20. So all the boons

Composer Info

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), Josquin Desprez (c.1452-1521), Felice Anerio (1560-1614), Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), Henry Purcell

CD Info

Coro CD COR 16175, Coro CD COR16178, Coro CD COR16173.