Детали релиза : The Sistine Chapel Choir - Veni Domine: Advent & Christmas at the Sistine Chapel (2017) [FLAC (tracks + .cue)]

If there is one decision made during the reign of Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013) for which we should all be grateful, it was his edict in 2010 to reform and refresh the Cappella Musicale Pontifica ‘Sistina’ and encourage its new Maestro Direttore Massimo Palombella to explore, restore and perform repertoire from the treasury of music contained within the Vatican Archive. This gift to the world will surely go down in our musical history as a significant event. The Sistine Chapel Choir, as it is more popularly known, here continues its excellent work with a recording of Advent and Christmas music entitled Veni Domine (usually translated as ‘Come Lord Jesus’). This is the third album on Deutsche Grammophon to be released in as many years. Once again it was recorded in the magnificent ambience of the Chapel after which it is named, between February and September this year. Several of the famous Renaissance composers represented (for example Guillaume Dufay, Josquin Desprez and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina) were past choristers of this vocal ensemble, singing in the same Chapel.



The ensemble once again presents as a chorus angelorum: responsive, confident and deeply sensitive. The presence of famous Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli might suggest some lighter repertoire, but the only track on which she sings is as soloist with the choir in the motet Beata viscera Mariae Virginis by Pérotin, a French polyphonist from the Notre Dame school who flourished in the 12th century. This work is three minutes and 48 seconds of pure and sustained bliss. Bartoli captures the purity, awe and mystery of the Virgin birth particularly with the words ‘O new wonder and unexpected source of joy’. Palombella must certainly have powerful persuasive skills to ask this soloist, famous for her Baroque operatic coloratura, to sing such early repertoire, her voice exposed with little covering vibrato. I genuinely cannot imagine a more exquisite sound. To hear this motet alone is worth the price of the recording.

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