Music of the Sistine Chapel - NOSPR

In 1977, NASA sent into space gold-plated disks with basic information about the terrestrial civilisation encoded on them. Their musical-sonic content included recordings of works by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, but also those of Japanese court chamber music, the Javanese gamelan and Chuck Berry’s guitar, as well as various natural landscapes and cityscapes. Do you think that such an attempt at “singing the whole world” makes sense? 

For their 50th anniversary, the legendary British vocal ensemble The Tallis Scholars set themselves a slightly less ambitious goal.  The group, which has given 2500 concerts on three continents and recorded over 50 albums, decided to take its listeners on a journey to the undisputable musical centre of the Renaissance era, i.e. to Rome. It was there  – at the junction of the Middle Ages and the Modern era – several generations before Bach and Mozart, that the Western ideals of balance, clarity and harmony were defined. Will the Renaissance masterpieces by Palestrina, Morales, Allegri and des Prés transport the NOSPR audience to the Sistine Chapel – a living monument to the Western spirituality, architecture, art and music? Let us see!    

Michał Mendyk