Pentecost In Rome - Music By Palestrina And Victoria

Pentecost, the day when the Church commemorates the conferring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles after Christ’s ascension, is one of the greatest feasts in the Christian calendar. It is looked on as the day of the Church’s foundation, and has always been celebrated with the greatest solemnity, especially in Rome, the epicentre of the Catholic Church.

Palestrina and Victoria are the two most famous composers who worked in Rome in the 16th century. The men of De Profundis, conducted by Jeremy Summerly, present a programme of Roman polyphony for Pentecost, featuring Palestrina’s magnificent 6-part mass and motet Dum complerentur, as well as a selection of their most luxuriant and brilliant music for this greatest of occasions.

Jeremy Summerly is a musicologist, broadcaster and founder/conductor of Oxford Camerata. A conductor of over fifty recordings, he is a reviewer for BBC Radio 3’s Record Review and is a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music. He is Director of Music at St Peter’s College, Oxford.