Vatican: The music of the popes recorded in the Sistine Chapel

For the first time in its history the Vatican has opened its doors to recording. In the heart of the Sistine chapel, a CD of the music of the popes is being made, under the title of Cantate Domino: The Sistine Chapel and the Music of the Popes. The album was presented to the media on September 29, 2015, four days after its official release by Deutsche Grammophone.

Included on the album are composers from the Renaissance (Palestrina, Lassus and Victoria) composed by the Sistine Chapel, but also two pieces of Gregorian chant, as well as world recordings and the original version of Allegri’s Miserere (Sistine Codex of 1661) and a Nunc dimittis attributed to Palestrina and usually sung at papal feasts.

According to press agency I Media on September 30, 2015, this CD aims to “allow the public to hear these pieces as they were originally conceived: in Latin and in the environment for which they were composed.” Deutsche Grammophon had a special recording studio designed for the Sistine Chapel and set up a mixing table in an antechamber next to the Chamber of Tears, the room where the newly elected Pontiff receives the pontifical robes.

It is an “unheard of event in the history of the papal musical chapel,” “testifying to the quality and the professionalism of this institution,” Archbishop Georg Gänswein, prefect of the pontifical household, told the press. “I hope these masterpieces will touch millions of listeners throughout the world and will put them into contact with the culture of history and the profound spirituality of the Catholic church,” Bishop Massimo Palombella, head of the choir of the Sistine Chapel, informed I Media.

(Sources: kipa-apic.ch – iMedia – Radio Vaticana – DICI no. 322, 09/10/15)

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