The new guy is Don Massimo Palombella.
Liberto was appointed by JPII (really, by Martino), and was notorious for his utter disrespect for the writings of a certain Cardinal Ratzinger.
The Liberto appointment was also controversial b/c he displaced Mgr. Bartolucci.
Whatever you may think of Bartolucci's philosophy of musica sacra, his choirs sang ugly. VERY ugly.
Let's hope that Palombella understands stuff like 'choral tone', and that forte is best offset now and again with piano; and that there are composers of excellent sacred music who are NOT Italian.
Here's a short clip of Mgr Palombella's college choir. Not bad at all!
That would be a start!
HT: Rorate Coeli
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5 comments:
I hate to say it, but the Sistine Choir is an embarrassment.
You understate the case...
I got a hearty laugh reading your (exceedingly accurate)description of the Capella Sistina's musicality.
Listening to the youtube clip of Palmobella conducting Bartolucci's Adeste Fidelis gave me little hope that we will be taking pride in our Vatican choir any time soon. God bless the Italian tenor's fach!
Like 'helden' fach, eh?
Perhaps the venue was not kind to Palombella's choir. It DID sound as though they were not always shouting.
I thought the You Tube clip did nothing to inspire hope for the future leadership of the Sistine Chapel Choir, especially the heavy handed and sloppy interpretation and the conducting of Don Palmobella which leaves a lot to be desired.
I agree with the comments of Dad29 and that the sound generally from Italian church choral singing is very spread and quite ugly. I see this every Sunday on Rai Uno for the 11am mass which mainly comes from Cathedrals all over Italy.
They need to emulate the quality of the Regensburger Domspatzen whose quality of singing is excellent. I don't really like German Latin being sung for Romance language composers but can cope with it for the compsers from Germany and Austria).
I have always wondered why the intonation is so bad at open air masses and having had the unique experience of being in Rome when HHJPII died I realised the problem. an A at the entrance to St Peter's is a G by the time it hits the Via Conciliazione aided by the poor loudspeaker system. Of course the good sister that conducted the "people's choir" didn't help with her flat and penetrating voice. The "choir" sounded like retired opera singers who had been out on the town the night before.
This fortunately has ended I see.
I went to the best classical CD shop in my city that has a huge selection and there was nothing to be found from the Sistine Chapel Choir neither today or from Bartolucci's era.
I wanted to do a compare and contrast with other leading choirs.
Thank you
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