As one of the few renaissance composers to whom a long-established tradition of modern performance attaches, Palestrina is a fitting subject of interpretative speculation. Here, Sergio Vartolo gives us a Palestrina we could almost place: imagine his music performed in an Italian church, say, in the early part of the seventeenth century. The singers’ approach will have been shaped, perhaps, by the new, virtuoso idiom of the solo motet; they will heed Monteverdi’s exhortation to “follow the pulse not of the hand, but of the soul”. It seems to be Sergio Vartolo’s aim to confront the counterpoint of the stile antico with the interpretative aims of the stile moderno. So he uses vibrato and rubato more freely than is often the case, in favour of a text-led, more dramatic approach. An organ is used throughout, but it is conceived of in continuo terms: instead of merely colouring or lending body to the sound it acts as the ensemble’s backbone, leaving the voices free rein to ebb and flow within or against it. The lines swerve and sway in a manner very different from the even, sustained sound that we have grown used to.
Needless to say, there is no way of knowing whether our hypothetical baroque choristers sang in the way I describe; what is certain is that Vartolo’s Palestrina is quite unlike that of the English choral tradition (and that of other Italian groups, for that matter). It is an intriguing approach. At its most controlled it pays undoubted dividends, as in the motets, which happen to be among Palestrina’s best known (e.g. Super flumina and Sicut cervus). But at times in the Masses the search for vocal individuality runs the risk of sending the ensemble over the edge, nearly upsetting the classical balance of voices that is the composer’s trademark. Then again, that’s the whole point of these performances, and the super-budget price makes it possible for the listener to take risks too.
Those wishing to sample this ‘alternative performance’ Palestrina should note that the Mass Sine nomine a 6 mentioned on the packaging (and precisely described in the booklet-notes) is entirely absent on the disc. What we hear instead is the four-voice Mass of the same name, published in Palestrina’s second book of Masses of 1567 (the six-voice work appeared in the fifth book of 1590). Red faces at Naxos, I think.'