Palestrina's A solis ortus cardine is a setting of a chant hymn for Christmas morning, at the service of Lauds. One highly unusual feature of the piece is that Palestrina sets a version of the chant that follows the contour of the well-known Gregorian melody, but puts it in a different mode (Dorian rather than Phrygian), even though such a version does not survive in any period chant books. We have used a reconstruction of this apparent source melody for our chant. Palestrina's setting uses alternatim technique, where verses of the chant alternate with polyphonic verses variously for three, four, and ultimately five voices. It was published in 1589, during which time Palestrina was maestro di cappella at St. Peter's in Rome, but two of its other sources are manuscripts copied by Palestrina himself, so it seems to be a work of which he was especially fond.

свернуть