Palestrina (Complete Opera - 1973 recording)

Palestrina (Complete Opera - 1973 recording) cover $30.00 Out of Stock
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PFITZNER
Palestrina (Complete Opera - 1973 recording)
Nicolai Gedda, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Helen Donath, Brigitte Fassbaender / Tolzer Knabenchor & Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk

[ Brilliant Classics Opera Collection / 3 CD Box Set ]

Release Date: Wednesday 1 April 2009

This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.

'It is that sense of communion established by the conductor and orchestra that above all makes this a recorded performance to cherish.' Gramophone, 1974

First performed in 1917 in Munich (conducted by Bruno Walter), Pfitzner's opera on the great 16th-century composer Palestrina became popular with those in German musical society who had become hostile to the direction which Schoenberg and Busoni had taken. Richard Strauss seemed to be able to straddle both camps successfully, but for other composers the musical tastes of the period were polarised between the progressives and the traditionalists. Pfitzner's Palestrina is clearly based on Wagnerian models, and can be viewed as a 'Papal Meistersinger'. Palestrina is claimed to have 'saved the arts of counterpoint and polyphony' in the face of a Papal edict that church music must be more traditional and revert to plainsong. Palestrina produces a work that contains all the 'modern' and 'sinful' musical styles the Pope disapproves of. Upon hearing the work, the Pope and Palestrina's arch critic, Archbishop Borromeo relents. The Pope congratulates the composer, and Borromeo begs his forgiveness. Palestrina is an impressive and moving work, and stands as Pfitzner's masterpiece.