Sandro Magister today offers a biting polemic against the appointment of Fr. Massimo Palombella, director of the Interuniversity Choir of Rome, as director of the Sistine Chapel choir. Magister, who is close to the former director Domenico Bartolucci (the director for life who was “tossed out in 1997”) writes that “the quality of [Palombella’s] conducting raises merciless criticism from many, including the one who taught him to no effect, Valentino Miserarchs Grau, president of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, Bartolucci’s successor as choirmaster of the basilica of Saint Mary Major, and another prominent interpreter of the Roman school of polyphony.”
In Magister’s telling, the appointment would be a disaster, and a far better choice would be to leave the current director in place. And is this because Palombella rejects Benedict’s liturgical and musical aims? Apparently not, at least not from what I can tell from his wikipedia entry. He has extensive training in music and theology, and specializes in Roman polyphony – at least according to his public biographies.
Maybe Magister is right and maybe not. It is impossible to tell from this distance. But Magister’s piece has the ring of a polemic that is more about internal politics than it is about music as such, at least from my reading.
Not that I have a dog in this fight, but I suspect your instincts are well-founded: when dealing with most politics, one is usually better served in tracing not only the money, as it were (if it were), but also the ordinary interpersonal dynamics – principles and ideas are typically more removed from being a ruddering force, but instead tend to provide a window-dressing.
A friend of mine who is very familiar with Grau is NOT a fan of Grau. He regards him as a very political animal with not much else to recommend him.
I think you're on to something, Jeffrey. Magister's unqualified praise for Bartolucci was enough to make me suspicious. Only time will tell, I suppose. Magister is definitely right about one thing: if there were to be a disastrous appointment for this position the pope (and his vision of sacred music) would suffer very much. But maybe his mentioning this is a scare tactic. Hard to say.
With all due respect to the former directors of the Sistine Chapel Choir, is it not fair to ask HOW this choir could have developed the sound it has been infamous for for decades? Does not the sound of this choir point to its directors and their level of competence?
Mary Ann Carr Wilson
Anonymous has a point.
The opinion of infamy is not universally shared. It is widely shared among those who have a certain sound in mind. But my understanding is that the timbre of those voices has been deliberately cultivated to sound that way, going back at least a few generations (at least in part because as a practical matter it made them more audible in the awful acoustics of the Basilica), and that the Sistine folks bristle at the suggestion there is anything wrong whatsoever. They *prefer* that timbre; it's not an issue of competence so much as emphatically different taste.
Liam,
I think there are two different issues here: the particular quality of sound and problems with intonation. I have no problem with former – I'm a great fan of the vocal traditions of particular places, where they aren't in dissonance with the ethos of the Rite. It's the latter I find inexcusable.
liam
i know youve raised this in other threads that delt with the "sistene sound" and you have a good point exept for one thing.
the sistene chapel choir is always ALWAYS flat.
i still cant believe that a sound that demands chest voice to the stratosphere to the point of real vocal damage can be termed anything but bad.
I do believe that one can use the "singing as controlled shouting" as style and can only point out to the excellent sounds of westminster cathedral. its almost as if the westminster sound is what the sistene choir aims for and so thoroughly misses.
after all good vocal production is just that and doesnt depend on style.
don roy
THREE STEPS IN TREACHERY, on the way up to the Sistine Chapel choir: 1) In the nineties (’91-’98), when Palombella’s musical skills were still scarce at best (not that they have much improved, as opposed to his managerial ones), he ably exploited a Salesian confrere musician, a certain AMS now living in Jerusalem, who provided musical arrangements and organ accompaniment that enabled Palombella to enter the Vatican with dignity and even with a fanfare, literally. Once that confrere was conveniently dumped, it was then the turn of Mons. Miserachs, former composition teacher of AMS, to be exploited. 2) From at least 1998, Miserachs, fine musician and gentleman that he is, provided musical arrangements and gladly welcomed the opportunity to have his own works performed by yet another choir, whilst helping Palombella and the inter-university students to explore other works and composers, including Refice and Bartolucci. All the while, the delicate young university voices were appropriately beefed up by hefty Sistine males and robust women pros, adequately compensated. That collaboration seems to have ended in 2009 when it was the turn of Miserachs to be dumped. 3) Third and final step: exploitation of Mons. Bartolucci himself, who understandably seems to relish the opportunity of having his works somehow revived in the papal celebrations, in spite of the upstart director’s evident lack of genuine musical skills (analytical, compositional, directorial…) and his need to lean heavily on other maestros. What next?