I Fagiolini explore the dazzling multi-choir soundworld of Orazio Benevoli - a crucial figure in 17th-century Italian music. As maestro of the papal choir and...

I Fagiolini explore the dazzling multi-choir soundworld of Orazio Benevoli - a crucial figure in 17th-century Italian music. As maestro of the papal choir and providing four-choir masses for special occasions, Benevoli invigorated the multi-choir style with vocal lines full of cross-rhythms, and voluptuous tutti sections with unexpected dissonances. Despite its beauty and historical importance, there have been few attempts to record Benevoli’s music. His Missa Tu es Petrus - recorded here for the first time - was based on Palestrina's famous motet and perhaps written for the newly finished basilica of St Peter in Rome. It appears here alongside four delightful solo-voice motets by his contemporary Bonifazio Graziani, each of them premiere recordings.