Various - CHORAL MASTERPIECES [CD]

Allegri: Miserere and other Choral Masterpieces Trained as a chorister in Rome from the age of nine, Gregorio Allegri (1582 - 1652) continued as a singer in Rome and at Fermo and Tivoli. In 1628 he became maestro di cappella at the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome and from 1630 he was a singer in the papal chapel of Pope Urban VIII. His best known composition for the papal choir is his nine-part Miserere, a psalm-setting customarily performed by the choir in Holy Week. The work remained the exclusive property of the papal choir and was copied out from memory by Mozart, when he heard the work sung in Rome in 1770. Three years later Dr. Burney took a copy of the Miserere, with other music of the chapel, during the course of his extended investigative journey through Europe. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525/26- 1594) was probably a native of Palestrina, the source of the name by which he is now best known. Born in 1525 or 1526, he had his principal career in Rome, largely at the Cappella Giulia. Under Pope Julius III he was admitted to the choir of the Sistine Chapel, from which, as a married man, he was dismissed under a successor. After various employment at the church of St. John Lateran and elsewhere, he returned in 1571 to the Cappella Giulia, where he remained until his death in 1594. Palestrina remains the most important representative of the Roman school of sixteenth century polyphony, his style a model for later students and composers. The Lamentations of Jeremiah form part of the liturgy for Holy Week, with three Lessons for the three final days of the week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. If Palestrina has proved to be a model for students of modal counterpoint, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 -1750) has long occupied a pedestal of similar height as a model of late Baroque tonal counterpoint. A Lutheran, from 1723 until his death in 1750 employed as cantor at the choir-school of St. Thomas in Leipzig, Bach left various settings of the Latin Mass, the most important of which is the great Mass in B minor, a composite work drawing on a variety of his earlier compositions. The Osanna in excelsis, from the Benedictus of the Mass, and the Agnus Dei are derived from a secular cantata of 1734. The Cantata Ein teste Burg ist unser Gott, A firm stronghold our God is still, BWV 80, was written in 1724 or perhaps 1730, but derived from an earlier cantata for use at Weimar in 1715. The cantata celebrates the Confession of Augsburg of 1530, the official date for the establishment of Lutheranism. The opening chorus here included is a polyphonic version of the original chorale. The music of the Cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147, was written for Weimar in 1716, revised and re-used in Leipzig in 1723. The chorale Jesu bleibet meine Freude, Jesu, joy of man's desiring, is among the best known of all Bach cantata movements. The Christmas Oratorio of 1734-35 is again compiled from earlier cantatas. The oratorio opens