The Sistine Chapel Choir Plans to Sing Contemporary Music

In an interview today in L’Osservatore Romano, the new director of the Sistine Choir, Massimo Palombella, said that the choir will expand its repertoire to include classical contemporary music by composers such as Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Duruflé, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Morten Lauridsen. “This step is necessary in order to prevent the papal choir from becoming a museum piece,” the director said.

I expect that fans of the great contemporary classical composer are struggling with whether this is good news or not.

awr

Source: KIPA

Anthony Ruff, OSB

Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB, is a monk of St. John's Abbey. He teaches liturgy, liturgical music, and Gregorian chant at St. John's University School of Theology-Seminary. He is widely published and frequently presents across the country on liturgy and music. He is the author of Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations, and of Responsorial Psalms for Weekday Mass: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter. He does priestly ministry at the neighboring community of Benedictine sisters in St. Joseph.

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16 responses to “The Sistine Chapel Choir Plans to Sing Contemporary Music”

  1. Brent McWilliams

    Bravo! Will they attempt such classics as “Glory and Praise to our God” as well? 😉

    Reply
  2. Nick Baty

    Gabriel Fauré d1899. Maurice Duruflé d1986. Charles Villiers Stanford d1924. Interesting interpretation of “contemporary”.

    Reply
    1. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
      Anthony Ruff, OSB

      Yes – my German-language news source has “zeitgenoessich” which means “contemporary.” Anyone know what the Italian says in OR?
      awr

      Reply
      1. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

        The Italian says “repertorio contemporaneo.” If they had used aggiornato (updated) that would have had a nice Vatican II sound to it!
        http://www.osservatoreromano.va/portal/dt?JSPTabContainer.setSelected=JSPTabContainer%2FDetail&last=false=&path=/news/interviste/2011/238q11-La-Sistina-non—un-pezzo-da-museo.html&title=%20%20%20La%20Sistina%20non%20%C3%A8%20un%20pezzo%20da%20museo%20%20%20&locale=it

  3. Bobby Stritch

    Ha! This is one of the greatest blows to art music in the last century!

    Reply
  4. Charles Culbreth

    Someone at USC Thornton will have to monitor Lauridsen should he ever have the misfortune of hearing the buffos, screamers and squeakers’ recording of “O magnum,” lest Morton starts spinning like a top, or shows any precursers to spontaneous combustion, as he did also set the Fire madrigali!
    I say they should do the greatest hits of Bartolucci and a bonus EP of those of Carey Landry. A Benemerenti goes to the last chorister alive and standing in the studio.

    Reply
  5. Kathleen Basi

    Love the last comment! So true!

    Reply
  6. Michael O'Connor

    Thank you Fr A for the link. I would be very interested to see an insider’s/expert’s parsing of the whole interview. It seems that the new director is laying out, however tentatively, new policy for an old choir.

    Reply
  7. M. Jackson Osborn

    Whatever their repertory, the Sistine choir have yet to sound like anything other than a chorus of wailing peasant boys rounded up from the road-side. On the other hand, why should one insult peasant boys?

    Were they to improve their performance, however, let us hope that they embrace really modern music, and not ‘contemporary’ stuff. They could take a hint from Westminster Cathedral and the great English choirs of men and boys.

    Reply
    1. Jordan Zarembo

      Perhaps today’s choir is better than the made Sistine eunuchs employed til the turn of the last century. A crackly hundred-year-plus recording of Alessandro Moreschi proves a point.

      Reply
    2. Gregg Smith

      LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      Reply
  8. M. Jackson Osborn

    And, it is heartening that they have heard of Stanford and Lauridson, and then, presumbaly, Howells, Britten, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Vaughn Williams, et al. It would, indeed, be a welcome treat were they ever to sound like a real choir with genuine choral tone.

    Reply
  9. Charles Culbreth

    Going tangential, off topic warning.
    Jordan’s barb at castrati sopranos brings out an interesting issue in my bent universe.
    In an era (from Moreschi’s passing to now) during which Deller’s revival of the countertenor soprano has culminated with near undetectable precision and beauty exemplified by performers such as Matthew Curtis (of Chanticleer) whose facility seems the sonic equal of Emma Kirkby, why did Mother Church initiate forced or unforced vascectomies upon boys with exceptional voices in the first place? I’m hoping that some historian will cite any rationale from any document about this. But I still can’t help but wonder that up to the “golden age of polyphony” not just a few monks had the time to hone their falsetti’s. Somebody Paul Harvey me quick!

    Reply
    1. Karl Liam Saur

      Castrati (at least the great ones) did not sound like modern male altos or countertenors. In their era, there were male altos and countertenors, and the voices were apparently quite distinct in quality. So they say….

      Reply
  10. Charles Culbreth

    I know, KLS, of the reveries of the “other-worldliness” of the castrati tone, but still…..??? (And the Moreschi doesn’t edify that legend, if only for the technology and the Schubert excceses.

    Reply
    1. Karl Liam Saur

      Also, he was waaaaaaaaaaaay past his prime and was not, by any accounts, a particularly great singer to begin with. His example is a fluke, as it were, better ignored for the purpose of your question.

      Let’s just say that, in the heyday of the greatest, um, unmodified, singers of Baroque opera, Farinelli and others like him commanded a premium over the rest. And it wasn’t entirely an exotica thing, even if it was of the “tulip bubble” era. Diva Bartoli has done her best to convey some of the sense of the style and repertoire (eg below). Even if someone were to experiment today with this, the training tradition is lost to history.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSwlpatYu-g

      Reply

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