Looking Bach to Palestrina

The Marian Consort joins forces with the award-winning players of the English Cornett & Sackbutt Ensemble for a sideways celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of the ‘Prince of Music’, Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

Palestrina’s music would prove to be hugely influential on subsequent generations of musicians, among them the towering figure of JS Bach, whose interest in ‘stile antico’ counterpoint is audible throughout his vocal writing.

As well as making his own performing edition of Palestrina’s Missa sine nomine, adding instrumental parts (as he did with several of his own motets) and a continuo bass, Bach also performed works by Palestrina’s Italian contemporaries from the anthology Florilegium portense with his choir at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, singing them so often that the books had to be replaced in 1729 as they had been ‘sung to pieces’!

We hear these alongside festive motets by Palestrina and works from Heinrich Schütz’s seminal Geistliche Chormusik, which also wears its Italian influence prominently and is dedicated to the city of Leipzig and the musicians of the Thomanerchor.

Palestrina, arr JS Bach Missa Sine nomine
JS Bach O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht
G Gabrieli Hodie Christus natus est
Palestrina O magnum mysterium
Viadana Hodie nobis caelorum Rex
Palestrina Hodie Christus natus est a8
Schütz Ein kind ist uns geboren
Palestrina Magnificat Primi toni a8
A Gabrieli, arr Schütz Der Engel sprach zu den Hirten

“The performances are models of discretion and musical taste, every texture clear, every phrase beautifully shaped.” - The Guardian