‘Bach every time for me … and then Palestrina,’ opines the sacred music obsessive Organ Morgan in Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, replying to an imaginary enquiry about his favourite composer. Other views are available: ‘I hate Palestrina!’ a Scottish former music critic proclaimed while holding court over interval drinks, before writing an opinion piece explaining how his university music studies had nipped any nascent appreciation in the bud. Sir James MacMillan, on the other hand, speaking of his student days, feels quite differently about the rigours of species counterpoint, the 18th-century teaching method that breaks Palestrina’s style into five techniques that must be mastered: ‘A lot of other students found it really boring, but I loved it’.

Much misinformation has arisen from the persistent myth that Palestrina was the ‘saviour of church music’ during the Counter-Reformation drive for liturgical simplicity, and that his Missa Papae Marcelli was dictated to him by the Holy Spirit. Theorist and composer Agostino Agazzari (1607) started this hare running, a legend encouraged in 1828 by the priest/composer Giuseppe Baini’s ‘research’ in his (then) critically acclaimed Life of Palestrina. The Council of Trent, the Roman church’s response to the Protestant Reformation, aimed to clarify doctrines and practices, and while some delegates were anxious about the complexity and seductive power of polyphony, no such ban was proposed. The idea that Palestrina stepped in to save sacred polyphony persisted, however, and was the inspiration for the flawed but fascinating opera by Hans Pfitzner (1917). Myth-busting is required.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526 to Neapolitan parents in the town of Palestrina in the Papal States. After music studies in Rome, his talent enabled a rapid rise to the post of maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia at St Peter’s Basilica in 1551. Four years later he was obliged to leave when Pope Paul IV demanded that all papal choristers be ordained. But being a layman with a wife and four children didn’t stop him directing the music at St John Lateran (where Lassus had been maestro) and Santa Maria Maggiore, and he returned to the Cappella Giulia in 1571, during the reign of Pius V, remaining until his death in 1594. The decade of the 1570s was full of personal tragedy: he lost his brother, two of his sons, and his wife, Lucrezia Gori, in three outbreaks of the plague. He seems to have considered taking holy orders, but instead remarried, this time a wealthy widow, Virginia Dormoli. The financial independence he gained enabled him to compose prolifically until his death.

Palestrina wrote more than 250 motets and 105 settings of the Ordinary of the Mass. His first book of masses was dedicated to Pope Julius III, a first for a native composer, since most composers of Roman sacred music in those days were from France, the Low Countries or Spain. He did not eschew secular music, but his madrigals are on the high-minded side and his attitude enigmatic: in the preface to his collection of Canticum canticorum (Song of Songs) motets (1584) he renounced the setting of profane texts, supposedly after criticism from the Pope, but only two years later he produced a second book of madrigals. As for his involvement with The Council of Trent (1545-1563), while the Missa Papae Marcelli was composed around 1562, becoming an exemplar for the way polyphonic music could preserve the clarity of the text, it may have been written before they got round to discussing this issue.

Stile Antico’s album Palestrina – The Golden Renaissance is one ‘you’ll want to make space for’ 

Palestrina’s work might have fallen into obscurity if not for Pope Clement VIII’s insistence (allegedly) that his published and unpublished works be reprinted after the composer’s death. Palestrina’s pupil Soriano expanded the Missa Papae Marcelli to double SATB and Francesco Anerio contracted it to four parts. In the 18th century, Bach studied Palestrina’s music and arranged the Missa Sine nomine. In the 19th century, a major Palestrina revival took place as attempts were made to restore the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church to its former glory. His music was deeply revered by the Cecilian movement, resulting in the printing of his complete works in a modern edition – the first Renaissance polyphonist on whom that honour was conferred. Thanks to the Victorian revival and the popularity of Baini’s biography, Palestrina became firmly nailed to his pedestal to an extent that might almost be dubbed worship.

Palestrina intended his mass settings to be sung in a liturgical context with other material (Propers, prayers and readings etc) chanted between the sections. How should we perform these works in concert today? Should we create semi-liturgical reconstructions or sing the sections through like a suite? Is his polyphony less impactful when heard without a break? Do we dishonour his intent and/or The Almighty by treating the mass-settings as ‘pure music’? That this is not a new argument is evinced by a wee spat in the pages of The Musical Times in 1915, four years after it published a rave review of Baini’s biography (hagiography?) of Palestrina, prompted by an article from the English musicologist Edward J Dent. V N Gilbert wrote to the editor: ‘The painter, the poet, the musician, give their best to the City of God, and such kings of the earth as Bach and Palestrina bring their glory and honour into it. “No,” says Mr Dent, “Palestrina must be rescued from this paradise. Get him out of the surroundings he composed for”... Mr Dent says that to understand Palestrina we must sing him. … Not brave, new ethical words, as in a London place of worship last year, but no words at all – no worship at all ... Mr Ruskin said somewhere that only a religious man can understand Fra Angelico; to this one may add that you can understand him best from the frescoes in the cloister and cells of S Marco, in the place they were painted for. So, to understand Palestrina to the full, it needs a religious mind, a Basilica, and the Mass.’

Efforts to truffle out information about that ‘new ethical words’ performance have been frustrated, but during the First World War, -isms abounded, from Socialism and atheism to vegetarianism, so let your imagination take its pick. Fortunately, all performance options are possible for us today, as the vast number of available recordings confirms. Much of his music still awaits recording, however, so here’s hoping that 2025 will fill in many of the gaps.

Palestrina recorded

There is a small proportion of recordings providing some semi-liturgical structure, even if only by interleaving the sections of the Ordinary with other polyphonic material. Most performers and labels opt for the safely commercial ‘suite’ format. Before turning to two outstanding recent releases here’s a lucky dip of past recordings.

The Gabrieli Consort and Players set the bar high in terms of semi-liturgical presentations for Christmas in Rome – Missa Hodie Christus natus with assorted motets and Propers, as it might have been sung in Santa Maria Maggiore c1620 – evocative and appreciative of the numinous, as is also The Choir of Westminster Cathedral under James O’Donnell, the Missa Ecce ego Johannes for example, with no Propers but a glorious devotional propulsion and a burnished, faith-filled vocal quality.

Treating the works solely as music and programming all their recordings of Mass settings as suites are The Tallis Scholars, invariably in refined voice as in, for example, Missa Assumpta est Maria. The Sixteen with their nine volumes of Palestrina take the same ‘suite’ approach – comfortably reliable quality from the Marks & Spencer of UK choral performance.

You can find a live and lively performance of the Missa Papae Marcelli with plainsong hymns in place of Propers from the consort Beauty Farm, but for a truly Roman sonic experience with much spirit of place, acoustic sfumato and romantic dynamics, the Sistine Chapel Choir sings this most celebrated work in suite format with motets. Others create imaginative composer pairings, such as the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, for example, as it presents the Missa Sine nomine a 6 with rare motets by Ingegneri replacing Propers in performances emotionally informed by a tour of the Holy Land.

There are similar contrasted approaches to Palestrina’s other liturgical works. His Lamentations for Maundy Thursday are sung with chant Responsories by Musica Contexta, but you will find music for the entire Triduum elegantly sung by Cinquecento on Lamentations Book 2 without plainchant. A work that arguably gets too much attention is his Canticum Canticorum, settings of texts from the Song of Songs, parts of which pop up beside the Masses in The Sixteen’s cycle and feature in many other recordings, including one from The King’s Singers, How Fair Thou Art, alongside other motets. If you want Palestrina’s madrigals, Concerto Italiano brings elegance, energy and sublimely instinctive ensemble to the First book of madrigals for four voices.

This is not a roster of all the major and minor talents that have recorded Palestrina’s polyphony and you will surely have your own favourites. This year is bound to prompt many recorded tributes, and here are two among the first off the block.

Palestrina Revealed from the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge is a truly revelatory programme which not only includes premiere recordings of the Missa Emendemus in melius and Missa Memor resto verbi tui, plus some rare motets, but also contrasts them with settings of the same motet texts by Palestrina’s English contemporaries, Byrd, Mundy and White. At almost 80 minutes, it’s a feast: thoughtful, scholarly, and sung with high intensity and rich sonorities.

Entering a crowded field by recording Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli alongside beloved motets including Tu es Petrus and Sicut Cervus, the singers of Stile Antico deserve plaudits by fearlessly going for the obvious with all the confidence, skill, technical mastery, emotional commitment, and focus for which they are renowned. The ‘suite effect’ is ameliorated by the interweaving of motets with mass sections. High-octane singing of devotional impact and magnificence in a superbly shiny acoustic, recorded with great clarity and depth. Even if you have several recordings of this mass already, you’ll want to make space for Palestrina – The Golden Renaissance sung as though fresh-minted and (almost) believably dictated by the Divine.

This feature originally appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Choir & Organ – Subscribe today