Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!newsfeed.bofh.team!paganini.bofh.team!not-for-mail
From: PPeso <paoloapesenti@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Subject: Palestrina, why not
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:33:29 -0500
Organization: To protect and to server
Message-ID: <vnf2v9$3uogs$1@paganini.bofh.team>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2025 05:33:29 -0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: paganini.bofh.team; logging-data="4153884"; posting-host="dYivlpz5I31jsFm/+Q/nJA.user.paganini.bofh.team"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@bofh.team"; posting-account="9dIQLXBM7WM9KzA+yjdR4A";
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Content-Language: en-US
X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.9.3
Bytes: 2613
Lines: 30

While the precise date of birth is slightly conjectural, we are 
approaching Palestrina's 500th anniversary. Anniversaries are always an 
easy pretext for rediscoveries and revaluations, so this is where I am 
for now.

1) At his best Palestrina's music is soothing and euphonious with a 
slight tendency toward melancholy and nostalgia. The 1564 second book of 
motets a 4 includes gems like Super Flumina or Sicut Cervus, arguably 
the best intro to his art (full disclosure, I discovered these pieces by 
singing them a long time ago in a boy choir and I may not be impartial). 
A serviceable recording is Berrini 1995, but let's see if new stuff is 
released this year.

2) At his worst Palestrina is dull, repetitive and tedious. The late 
offertories of 1593 are a good example of this tendency, although 
Taruskin writes interesting things about them in the Oxford History. To 
be reconsidered.

3) The Missa Papae Marcelli published in 1567 remains his best known 
piece, which is understandable. I like it most when sung by relatively 
large choral forces, such as Preston 1985 on Archiv. I am less 
enthusiastic about  the madrigal-style reading(s) by the Tallis Scholars 
or more recently (2020) the all-male live recording by Beauty Farm, a 
group that truly excels in earlier polyphonic repertoires.

4) And finally, Palestrina is of course the main character of Pfitzner's 
opera. It is arguably one of the rare cases of an opera with a better 
libretto than music (Nixon in China comes to mind as well...), but I 
find the third act strangely moving and the second act (with all the 
cardinals deeply engaged in intrigue and conspiracy) remarkably true to 
life. For a recording go for the good old 1973 Kubelik.