Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli is one of the most famous works of the Renaissance age. And it’s not just the early 17th-century myth that this piece “saved” polyphonic sacred music from being banned by the Council of Trent which makes a performance of the Mass so appealing. Even apart from this legend and the work’s great history, it still captivates today due to the skilled setting of the text combined with a complex, multi-layered polyphony.

This edition by Italian musicologist Francesco Saggio is not only based on the earliest printed versions of the Mass, which first appeared in the 16th century, but also on two handwritten copies made during Palestrina’s lifetime that have been preserved in sacred collections. The edition also includes a second “Agnus Dei“, which until today has only been found in the manuscripts. The aim of the edition is to reproduce the earliest version of the score while at the same time revising it to meet modern performance requirements.

The individual parts of the mass are also available in separate editions (Carus 27.906/10 - /70), offering choirs who are not (yet) familiar with the period a good opportunity to explore Palestrina’s style.