At the dawn of the 17th Century, Italian art influenced all of Europe. Even the Polish Royal Court, recently moved to cold and distant Warsaw, employed a full ensemble of the finest Italian musicians. Two of the most famous Italian musicians of the day, Luca di Marenzio and Tarquinio Merula, were brought by Poland’s Wasa kings for brief engagements in Warsaw. But Asprilio Pacelli, the Italian maestro whose long tenure may be considered an apogee of Polish culture, remains relatively unknown, perhaps because of his decision to leave Rome earlier in his career and spend the rest of his life in Warsaw.
The loss of Pacelli's music is only one aspect of the deliberate destruction of Poland’s cultural heritage over the next centuries, as foreign powers sought to suppress nationalist identity. This tragic process culminated in a mass destruction of virtually every known Polish cultural document by the Nazi regime during World War II. Although some of Warsaw's old city has since been reconstructed, the musicians of The Pacelli Project hope to restore some of the most glorious elements of the city’s musical heritage, through a multiphase project of concerts and publications.
First Phase
I. Pacelli Organ Vespers
Based on Pacelli's Chorici Psalmi et Motecta (a 4), published in Rome in 1599, this ritual reconstruction will capture a time in music history when virtuosic Renaissance vocal polyphony was in transition to organ-accompanied Baroque music. Our modern premiere of these works will bring Pacelli’s music to contemporary Italian and Polish audiences in its intended ritual context. The program will primarily feature Pacelli's Psalms and Magnificat, alternated with Gregorian chant and with solo motets by other composers in the Roman tradition (Palestrina, Viadana, Anerio).
For this collaborative effort, the Polish soprano Maria Skiba will prepare the vocal score with American music director Eric Mentzel. The Italian organist Osvaldo Guidotti will prepare the organ realizations and the singers will add ornamentation in the style of the day. Dutch priest and musicologist Father Martin Claes will supervise the Gregorian chant and liturgical reconstruction.
The rehearsals will be hosted by The Art Monastery in Calvi dell’Umbria.
The tour will seek sponsorship to bring Pacelli’s work to historically appropriate churches in Italy that could not afford to pay for such a concert outright. If time and funds are available, the tour would be extended to include a few Polish dates.
A CD recording will capture the musical cohesion created on a successful tour. This CD will make the music more widely available as well as stimulate funding for further phases of the project.
Later Phases
II. A new publication of Pacelli's sacred works
will feature essays placing Pacelli's composition in the various contexts of Polish history, Baroque musicology, and European cultural exchange.
III. A restoration of Pacelli's own traveling organ, recently rediscovered in a forgotten hallway of the Royal Palace in Warsaw, will be made and used in subsequent project tours.
IV. Grand Pacelli Vespers
Based on Pacelli's polychoral Motectorum et Psalmorum, 1598, as he may have realized them around 1615 with the large forces he had available at the Polish Royal Chapel. This was the height of Early Baroque splendor as Poland's Swedish King Zygmunt III attempted to establish Warsaw as a European cultural capital. He was particularly fond of the energetic cori spezzati style, alternating between two or three choirs of singers and instruments.
This grand Polish arrangement of Pacelli's vespers will include a second choir, string quartet, lavish continuo, and a Swedish trombone ensemble. Recreated in a manner fit for a king, the tour would return this glorious but suppressed music to its people in historic churches in Poland, as well as Sweden, Italy, and the rest of Europe.
V. US Tour of several cities with large Polish-American communities
Biographies
The Pacelli Project grew out of a 2004 collaboration between Polish soprano and musicologist, Maria Skiba, and American tenor and theatre director, Christopher Fülling. Together they reconstructed an Easter Vespers from the Polish Royal Chapel circa 1615 with Cappella Confluentes, an ensemble Mr. Fülling founded for this project with German conductor, Jörn Andresen. Their rehearsal was generously hosted by the Benedictine cloister of Maria Laach, near Koblenz in Germany. They made two concert tours and a CD recording that earned the Rhein Zeitung's "Pick of the Week" accolade. The musicians' experience at Maria Laach sparked the idea of the Art Monastery.
Pacellis in Calvi? A final serendipity revealed itself in the process of finding a home for The Art Monastery in Calvi dell’Umbria when the musicians of The Pacelli Project performed a small concert in the town's parish church in June 2007. Not only was this the turning point in the town’s welcoming of the project, but several Pacellis attended the concert as well. Four years after rediscovering the work of Asprilio Pacelli, we had come to reside in the town directly across the mountain from his birthplace, Vasciano.
Musicians
Gerd Amelung, Matthew Baker, Ewa Chmielewska, Christopher Fülling, Amy Green, Osvaldo Guidotti, Phoebe Jevtovic, Dana Marsh, Eric Mentzel, Maria Skiba, Daniel Zorzano
Scholars & Consultants
Dott. Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata, Father Martin Claes
