Scarlatti: Messa Clementina + Palestrina

Castelain, Louis, Le Parnasse Francais

PTY 316153

This program takes us to the heart of the pontifical chapels to hear an original and masterful work by Alessandro Scarlatti. In the early eighteenth century Alessandro Scarlatti under the patronage of Cardinal Ottoboni was appointed choirmaster in Rome at the Basilica of St. Mary Major. Hoping, no doubt, to find new subsidies from the Pontifical See, he composed an a cappella Mass for the singers of the Sistine Chapel, which he dedicated to Pope Clement XI, the Messa Clementina . Louis Castelain has found the autograph manuscript of this unpublished work in the Vatican archives and offers with the French Parnassus a program around the music of Scarlatti in the pontifical chapels and major basilicas of Rome. At that time, Palestrina, although having been dead for more than a century, remains the reference in the pontifical chapel, and his works form the bulk of the repertoire. The Mass of Scarlatti is part of this Palestrian tradition with its rich and virtuoso counterpoint with 5 and 7 voices and the use of Renaissance artifices such as Canon or Cantus firmus, but on the other hand it is a "Baroque" work By the mobility of his speech and the frequent contrasts of his harmony. The program of this concert is built to invite the listener to soak up the atmosphere of the pontifical chapel in 1700, starting with two works of Palestrina still in the repertoire, and to taste the modernity of Scarlatti, continuing with his Messa Clementina and other works from the same period. The ensemble of works is interpreted by a set of soloists to one by voice, following the use of the Pontifical Chapel, as Jean Lionnet showed in his numerous studies on the subject.

CD

28.10.2016

3760213650450