Hymn, Mass, Motects, Madrigals by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the best composer of Renaissance, named also Princeps musicae, the Prince of music.

The CD explore the production of this Master. Performed by Schola Romana Ensemble, our historically informed group, the CD contains the Hymn and the Mass SANCTORUM MERITIS (first recording), Motects and Madrigals of Palestrina.

The CD also contains the exclusive reconstruction of the Motect “Quam pulchra es” painted by Caravaggio in his masterpiece “The rest during the flight in Egypt” (Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphilj).

Extract from the booklet (text by our conductor, Stefano Sabene)

[….] Besides the Mass, this CD offers a choice of five motets with different liturgical purposes and modal environments; such motets show heterogeneous expressive domains, compositional processes and sonorities. The last two motets are taken from the famous “Canticum Canticorum” cycle – the most poetical text in the Bible, without any shadow of doubt – one of the highest evidence of Palestrina’s production in terms of elegance and variety of compositional solutions. There are also four madrigals representing Palestrina’s only “sortie” as far as secular music is concerned.

The last piece recorded in this CD is my reconstruction of Noel Bauldewjin’s lost motet “Quam pulchra es”; yet, it is painted in its only surviving soprano part in Caravaggio’s famous “Riposo durante la fuga in Egitto”, in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome. […]

Tracklist:

¹ Sanctorum meritis
² Kyrie
³ Gloria
⁴ Credo
⁵ Sanctus
⁶ Agnus Dei
⁷ Cantabo Domino
⁸ Improperium
⁹ Exaltabo te, Domine
¹⁰ Veni dilecte mi
¹¹ Vox dilecti mei
¹² Oh, che splendore
¹³ Da così dotta man
¹⁴ I vaghi fiori
¹⁵ Chiare, fresche, dolci acque
¹⁶ Noel Bauldewijn: Quam pulchra es 

Total Time: 61’ 59’’