AN ACCLAIMED RECORDING
Palestrina: Missa Tu Es Petrus
The Choir of St. Luke in the Fields
David Shuler, conductor
MSR Classics
Recorded at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, New York
“...this could well be the stand-out Palestrina CD of recent times. In short, if you only have one Palestrina disc, this should be it, and if you already have several dozen, you need to add this to your collection. It really is a marvellous display of intelligent and perceptive music-making.”
“…every one of the singers responds to [Shuler] with intensity and flexibility in equal measure – individually and as a group. So seamless is the interweaving of voices that the massed choir sounds almost like a single voice with exceptional range… Shuler and his choir convey the subtleties of the material, in the mass and motets alike, with warmth and precision.”
“...the 14-member choir move naturally with a pleasant dynamic range and a gentle colour palette... The warm, spacious recordings provide an audiophile display of Palestrina’s vivid writing. The blending of the voices halfway through Tu es Petrus is quite astonishing. In Sicut cervus, as the choir relaxes into deeper regions of sound and dimension, the microphones capture the women with an especially lovely bloom.”