Views from the Choir Loft

Sistine Chapel Choir has made Great Improvement

Andrew Leung · November 12, 2015 ·

FEW WEEKS AGO, Veronica shared on her post about the new CD that the Sistine Chapel Choir is releasing. The CD, Cantate Domino is now available on Deutsche Grammophon and I have just received my CD. I have listened to it more than three times now and I am just amazed by the improvement they have made! You can hear the differences if you compare these two recordings below.

(1) Palestrina’s Reges Tharis et insulae from 2011:

(2) Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus from the 2015 CD:

HE SISTINE CHAPEL CHOIR sounds like a British boys’ choir! The recordings in this CD are definitely the best ones I have ever heard from the Italian choir. The balance, blending and tuning is perfect! This is the first time that the Sistine Chapel has been used for a commercial recording. The music recorded in the CD was written specifically for the Sistine Chapel Choir for papal celebrations. The choir has recorded both Gregorian Chant and polyphonic pieces in this album.

What do you think about this new album? Do you like the way they are singing now? Feel free to leave comments on the Facebook page.

About Andrew Leung

Andrew Leung currently serves the music director of Vox Antiqua, conductor of the Cecilian Singers and music director at Our Lady of China Church. He is also an artist and vocal coach at the Paul Phoenix Academy.

Could Pope St. Pius X Sing?

“On 12 March 1908, the complete publication of the Roman Gradual was issued by the Vatican Press. On that very day, Dom Pothier solemnly presented the first copy to the Holy Father. A witness of the audience says that Pius X wished to be the first to see the new book; he opened it at random, at page 128 of the supplement pro aliquibus locis—it was the Introit of the new Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Pope sang it with perfect taste to the last note.” (Catholic Choirmaster, February 1915)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Julius Bas Accompaniment

A very prolific harmonizer of Gregorian chant in the early 20th century was Mr. Julius Bas. He often uses a very strange technique, wherein he employs rests to eliminate the Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. Consider what he did with “Lumen ad revelationem” here:

* JPEG • Lumen ad revelationem

It seems quite lazy, and I’ve never seen anyone else use such a technique, although Dr. Peter Wagner often switched to parallel octaves when he ran out of ideas… (Yuck!)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Hitting wrong notes

Fr. Valentine Young, OFM, used to say: “The organist can play 1,000 correct notes and one wrong note—and the only thing people will care about is the wrong note.” Last Sunday I hit some wrong notes, and felt bad. Then I remembered a story about Rudolf Serkin and started to chuckle. Charles Rosen (or was it Leon Fleisher?) told the story of Serkin playing a Beethoven Sonata in front of a large audience. The theme is all in octaves; but Serkin hit some wrong notes, and played parallel 7ths instead. This so unnerved him that every time the theme returned, he played the entire thing in parallel 7ths! We must remember that even the greatest hit wrong notes. Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Sviatoslav Richter, Egon Petri—they all hit wrong notes, which we can hear on recordings. (Josef Hofmann was an exception, but he was super-human so he doesn’t count!)

—Jeff Ostrowski