The Marian Consort: Palestrina & Bach

The Marian Consort joins forces with the award-winning players of the English Cornett and Sackbut 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’!

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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. 

Giovanni Gabrieli (c1554-7-1612) Jubilate Deo, omnis terra
GP da Palestrina, arr JS Bach Missa Sine nomine – Kyrie
Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) Pater noster a8
GP da Palestrina, arr JS Bach Missa Sine nomine – Gloria
GP da Palestrina (1525/6-1594) Pater noster a8
Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) Selig sind die Toten
GP da Palestrina, arr JS Bach Missa Sine nomine – Credo
Heinrich Schütz Sehet an den Feigenbaum
Annibale Stabile c1535-1595) Nunc dimittis a8
GP da Palestrina, arr JS Bach Missa Sine nomine – Sanctus
GP da Palestrina Nunc dimittis a8
GP da Palestrina, arr JS Bach Missa Sine nomine – Agnus Dei
JS Bach (1685-1750) Komm, Jesu komm