Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.After all the early music scholarship in recent decades, it must seem that the music by a composer as prominent as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina must be familiar by now. Not so, says Graham Ross, director of music at Clare College, Cambridge, and he has created this recording, due for release on January 10, to prove it.As 2025 marks the likely 500th anniversary of Palestrina (c1525-94), who knows what more the year might produce? With more than 100 masses and 250 motets to his name, Palestrina was prolific even for his time.Ross and the Choir of Clare College present five world premiere recordings of sacred works by Palestrina. The disc opens with an eloquent, five-voice setting of the Magnificat, probably written during Palestrina’s time at the Vatican, which is a gem in itself.Among the other, more richly-voiced works are the compact, five-part Missa Memor esto, notable for its quickly-changing vocal groupings, and Ad te levavi oculos meos, one of the composer’s eight surviving triple-choir motets. These and the four-part Missa Emendemus in melius show the variety Palestrina could achieve within the purity of his mature style.An additional attraction of the disc is the pairing of Palestrina’s works with settings of the same texts by English Renaissance composers, such as William Byrd, William Mundy and Robert White. Performances are high quality, not chiselled in perfection like some of today’s professional small choirs, but tonally youthful, lithe and well balanced.★★★★☆‘Palestrina Revealed’ is released by Harmonia Mundi
