Via Crucis - Roman Early Music for Holy Week

Allegri Miserere

Palestrina Stabat Mater for 8 voices

Gesualdo Tenebrae

Anerio Christus factus est

Gesualdo O vos omnes

John of Portugal Crux fidelis

Lotti Crucifixus (a 8 voci)

Palestrina Sicut servus

Viaddon Exsultate justi

Victoria O vos omnes

Imagine entering the Sistine Chapel at three o'clock in the morning sometime in the early Sixteenth Century. There you witness the Pope with the Sacred College of Cardinals recounting the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ with the solemn rituals of Holy Week. It s a rather staggering scene that awed visitors to Rome over the centuries.

Today we perform many of the seminal works from that era in a special program called   Via Crucis – Roman Early Music for Holy Week. Via Crucis , the Way of the Cross, reenacts much of the traditional Roman liturgy of Holy Week (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Easter Vigil), while capturing the spirit of the 15 th and 16 th century Roman church perpetuated during subsequent centuries.

No work is more emblematic of the Via Crucis than the Allegri Miserere. This music survived several redactions culminating in a standard version that combines plain chant for men and boys with a theme sung by solo boy soprano climaxed by a keening high C.   This ensemble creates a marvelous and haunting effect that marks Allegri's Miserere as one of the touchstones of the 16 th century.

  Likewise, Palestrina in his Stabat Mater scores this music for double choir, creating a heartbreaking memorial to Mary's anguish over the Passion and Death of her son, Jesus Christ.   In fact every piece on this program is a masterwork each to be savored in its own right.

In addition to the sublime music on this program, the period costumes designed and produced for the Knabenchor Virtuosi by Sylvia Purcar adds to the pageantry of traditional Holy Week services.