Sistine Chapel Choir & Massimo Palombella - Cantate Domino: La Cappella Sistina e la Musica dei Papi (2015) [Hi-Res]

Cantate Domino, a 2015 release on Deutsche Grammophon, is the first commercial studio recording of the Sistine Chapel Choir, led by Massimo Palombella, which has until now been heard only in live recordings of varying quality. The program is a mix of Gregorian chants and motets that have long been a part of the Sistine Chapel's liturgical music, including works by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Orlande de Lassus, Felice Anerio, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and perhaps most famously, Gregorio Allegri, whose Miserere was once exclusively performed by the choir. This recording features the original fauxbourdon version of the Miserere, found in the Sistine Codex of 1661, which differs from later arrangements and adaptations in its austere simplicity and lack of abbellimenti or ornamentation, such as the famous "top C" passage which many might expect. The sound of the antiphonally divided choir may seem lopsided in this recording, since the remote singers are rather soft and distant in the chapel's echoic acoustics, and the long reverberation time tends to blur their words, so following the enclosed text is helpful. -- Blair Sanderson