Search - Odhecaton :: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli

The Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina is a crossroads of historical and musical doubt and paradoxes. After all, legends such as these are always nourished first in the shadows of history, in the ambiguous folds of testimonies; enigma is the birthplace of creative fantasy, spurring the collective imagination in its constant aspiration to embody mythical forms. Palestrina himself was probably the first to consciously set the stage for the creation of the myth which would surround him and his work. Already with his earliest publication, the Liber primus missarum of 1554, the entire enterprise seemed fueled by a desire for majesty and success, from the large format of the volume to the meticulously prepared graphics, from the dedication to a great ecclesiastical personage to-last but not least-the musical contents. For the first time in recording history, Odhecaton has recreated as much as possible a hypothetical performance by the pontifical chapel at the time of Pope Marcellus II. With an ensemble of about twenty singers, Odhecaton comes close to the formation of the pontifical chapel which, between 1510 and 1585, numbered between twenty and thirty-six singers. Odhecaton excludes soprano and treble voices, extraneous to the pontifical chapel in the second half of the sixteenth century, and employs only adult male voices: basses, baritones, tenors and countertenors. Until now the discography of the Missa Papae Marcelli has been dominated by British ensembles and choirs, inclined to emphasize the balanced purity of the vocal lines, the ethereal side of Palestrina. Odhecaton instead highlights the Mediterranean qualities of his vocal style. The performance places the Missa Papae Marcelli in a liturgical context, which emphasizes its original function, reconstructing a hypothetical liturgy (the Easter Mass) with music as it might have been celebrated at the Sistine Chapel.