Live in Venice - Monteverdi, Palestrina, Lotti, Allegri, Komitas, Pärt

The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

Live in Venice - Monteverdi, Palestrina, Lotti, Allegri, Komitas, Pärt
Release date: 23.10.2026 ECM 2732/33
BR & CD36,90 €coming soon
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Here is a singular recording of the Tallis Scholars under Peter Phillips from the glorious Basilica di San Marco in Venice, recorded on July 14th, 2017. Included in the programme, conceived around Monteverdi’s 450th anniversary year, are works by Monteverdi, Palestrina, Lotti, Allegri, Komitas and Pärt – among them masterpieces by Allegri (Miserere) and Palestrina (Magnificat), with which the Tallis Scholars have become identified over the years. In the concert’s programme note, printed in the CD-accompanying booklet, Peter Phillips speaks of “old favourites and some very new ideas,” – the new ideas mainly being attributed to the priest, composer and ethnomusicologist Komitas, with whose two compositions featured here Phillips and the vocal ensemble “wish to pay tribute to the centuries-old heritage of the Armenian community in Venice.” An audio-visual experience, the concert arrives in a 1-CD/1-Blu-Ray package, presenting the listener and viewer with this rare and intimate event from inside this historic Italian basilica.
Hiermit liegt eine einzigartige Aufnahme der Tallis Scholars unter der Leitung von Peter Phillips aus der prachtvollen Basilika San Marco in Venedig vor, aufgezeichnet am 14. Juli 2017. Das Programm, das anlässlich des 450. Geburtstags von Monteverdi konzipiert wurde, umfasst Werke von Monteverdi, Palestrina, Lotti, Allegri, Komitas und Pärt. Darunter befinden sich Meisterwerke wie Allegris Miserere und Palestrinas Magnificat, für deren Interpretation die Tallis Scholars im Laufe der Jahre besonders bekannt wurden. Im Programmtext zum Konzert, der im CD-Booklet abgedruckt ist, spricht Peter Phillips von „alten Favoriten und einigen ganz neuen Ideen“. Mit den „neuen Ideen“ sind vor allem die Werke des Priesters, Komponisten und Ethnomusikologen Komitas gemeint. Mit den beiden hier enthaltenen Kompositionen möchten Phillips und das Vokalensemble „dem jahrhundertealten Erbe der armenischen Gemeinschaft in Venedig Tribut zollen“. Als audiovisuelles Erlebnis erscheint das Konzert in einer Edition mit einer CD und einer Blu-ray und bietet Hörerinnen, Hörern sowie Zuschauerinnen und Zuschauern die seltene Gelegenheit, dieses intime Konzert aus dem Inneren der historischen italienischen Basilika mitzuerleben.
Featured Artists
  • The Tallis Scholars
  • Amy HaworthSoprano
  • Emily AtkinsonSoprano
  • Rachel Ambrose EvansSoprano
  • Charlotte AshleySoprano
  • Caroline TrevorAlto
  • Alex ChanceAlto
  • Ben AldenTenor
  • Simon WallTenor
  • Tim WhiteleyBass
  • Robert MacdonaldBass
  • Peter PhillipsDirector
Recorded

July 2017, Basilica di San Marco, Venezia

Original Release Date

23.10.2026

  • 1Magnificat Primi Toni
    (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Traditional)    05:36
  • 2Nunc dimittis
    (Arvo Pärt, Traditional)    05:58
  • Messa a quattro voci da cappella
    (Claudio Monteverdi, Traditional)
  • 3Kyrie04:24
  • 4Gloria04:53
  • 5Credo07:07
  • 6Sanctus - Benedictus04:39
  • 7Agnus Dei03:29
  • 8Miserere mei, Deus
    (Gregorio Allegri, Traditional)    12:17
  • 9Surp-Surp
    (Komitas Vardapet, Traditional)    03:02
  • 10Sirt im sasani
    (Komitas Vardapet, Traditional)    02:42
  • 11Crucifixus (8vv)
    (Antonio Lotti, Traditional)    03:44
  • 12Crucifixus (from "Selva morale e spirituale")
    (Claudio Monteverdi, Traditional)    02:39
  • 13Adoramus te Christe
    (Claudio Monteverdi, Traditional)    03:06
  • 14Domine ne in furore
    (Claudio Monteverdi, Traditional)    02:51
  • 15Cantate Domino
    (Claudio Monteverdi, Traditional)    02:38
  • 16Crucifixus (10vv)
    (Antonio Lotti, Traditional)    03:21
The Tallis Scholars, founded by their conductor Peter Phillips in 1973, belong among the world’s preeminent chamber choirs and have championed the sacred vocal music of the Renaissance like no other ensemble. Here they are captured in a remarkable concert recorded on 14 July 2017 in the glorious Basilica di San Marco in Venice. Issued as a 1-CD/1-Blu-ray set, the release offers both an intimate listening experience and the rare opportunity to witness the performance from within the basilica itself, where the acoustics of the historic space become an integral part of the music.
Renaissance polyphony permeates this programme, which was conceived around the 450th anniversary celebrations of Claudio Monteverdi’s birth in 2017. Alongside music by Monteverdi himself are compositions by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Antonio Lotti and Gregorio Allegri, among them Allegri’s celebrated Miserere and Palestrina’s Magnificat – works with which the Tallis Scholars have become closely identified over the years. Yet the programme also reaches beyond the Renaissance, placing this great tradition of sacred polyphony in dialogue with music of a very different historical and cultural origin.
In the concert’s programme note, printed in the CD-accompanying booklet, Peter Phillips speaks of “old favourites and some very new ideas”. The new ideas are represented by Arvo Pärt’s Nunc dimittis on the one hand, (The piece, composed in 2001, also appears on the label in a performance by Vox Clamantis, on the ensemble’s 2025 album And I Heard A Voice.) and on the other by the music by Komitas, whose works the Tallis Scholars performed as a gesture of solidarity with the Armenian community of Venice. Phillips and the ensemble “wish to pay tribute to the centuries-old heritage of the Armenian community in Venice”, creating a connection between the musical traditions of the city and the living cultural memory of its Armenian presence.
The composers represented here illuminate the rich and varied history of sacred vocal music. Monteverdi stands at the threshold between Renaissance polyphony and the emerging Baroque, bringing the contrapuntal inheritance of the sixteenth century into a new expressive language. Palestrina, by contrast, became the defining figure of the Roman Renaissance, his lucid polyphony long regarded as an ideal of liturgical writing. Antonio Lotti, born and active in Venice, continued the Venetian tradition into the eighteenth century and served as maestro di cappella at San Marco, making his presence in this particular setting especially resonant. Gregorio Allegri, a Roman composer and singer associated with the Sistine Chapel, is remembered above all for his Miserere, whose restrained setting of Psalm 51 became one of the most famous sacred works of the Western tradition.
Alongside these European masters stand two works by Komitas (Soghomon Soghomonian), the Armenian priest, composer and pioneering ethnomusicologist whose work preserved and transformed the musical heritage of Armenia. Like Pärt, his compositions bring a modern, deeply personal voice to a programme otherwise rooted in centuries-old Western sacred polyphony.
The Tallis Scholars are in the midst of an international tour as this album is released, with concerts in Bogotá, Colombia (1 Oct.); Florence, Italy, at the Teatro Niccolini (25 Oct.); and Cambridge, UK, at King’s College Chapel (28 Oct.), followed by performances in South Korea and China in November.

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