Sacred vocal music of the Renaissance

The sensuality of the Song of Solomon at the service of the Marian devotion.

The first concert program of the cycle « Between stones and the sea » presented this year by Les Voix Animées is dedicated to Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, a major composer of the second half of the 16th century.

Published by the Roman master in 1584 at Alessandro Gardano’s printing house, under the name of « Motettorum Quinque Vocibus Liber Quartus », Canticum Canticorum is a cycle of motets with high consistency, intense spirituality and subtle sensuality. The « Song of Songs » is undoubtedly a form of public apology that Palestrina expressed, after publishing his madrigals, of a genre both secular and gallant. A proof can be seen with the dedication to Pope Gregory XIII…

« There are way too many poems whose subject is love, but of a genre which is unfamiliar to the Christian faith ».

Motets by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

11th concert cycle « Entre pierres et mer »

In 2022, Les Voix Animées are celebrating Italy by dedicating their concert cycle to the composers of the Cinquecento and by paying a particular tribute to two major composers of the Renaissance, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Giaches de Wert.

These two masters, through an absolute art of the counterpoint, made the music of the Papal Chapel spread, as well as the music of the House of Gonzaga in Mantua. Their leading light inspired a generation of musicians and accompanied, throughout all Europe, the transformation of the Renaissance’s « stile antico » to the Baroque’s « stile nuovo ».