1527: The Church on Fire

May 1527. Rome is under attack. As imperial troops surge through the city, looting churches and palaces, Pope Clement VII abandons the Vatican and escapes through a secret passage to Castel Sant’Angelo. The Sack of Rome devastates the capital of Catholic Europe: composers scatter, musical institutions collapse, and the city’s artistic life is left in ruins. Yet from this moment of crisis emerges a period of intense reflection, reinvention and reform. In the decades that follow, musicians, theorists and church leaders will reshape the sound of sacred music – from the madrigals and laments of those who fled, to the new ideals of clarity and devotion that take hold in Rome’s chapels and choirs.

Gillian Moore is joined by a roster of distinguished historians for this major new BBC Radio 3 series, charting a course through 1000 years of classical music history. For the first eight programmes, historian Michael Wood is in the chair, as together they explore the bold new sound worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Producer: Amelia Parker
Academic Consultant: Professor Laura Tunbridge, University of Oxford
Story Consultant: Kate Leys
Series Editor for BBC Audio: Emma Harding

Key Changes theme tune composed by Joseph Howard and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Kerem Hasan.

MUSIC DETAILS

Philippe Verdelot: Italia mia
Huelgas Ensemble
Paul van Nevel, conductor

Hector Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini – Overture (excerpt)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Colin Davis, conductor

Costanzo Festa: Deus venerunt gentes
BBC Singers

Maddalena Casulana: Vagh’amorosi augeli
The Sixteen
Harry Christophers, conductor

Vicente Lusitano: Regina caeli
The Marian Consort
Rory McCleery, conductor

Thomas Tallis: If ye love me
The Tallis Scholars
Peter Phillips, conductor

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Sicut cervus
BBC Singers

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli – Kyrie
Stile Antico

Anton Bruckner: Os justi
Latvian Radio Choir
Sigvards Klava, conductor

Gregorio Allegri: Miserere mei (excerpt)
VOCES8