Palestrina: Volume 7

Palestrina is perhaps the most famous of all Renaissance composers, certainly by name. By the time of his death his reputation outshone all others. His musical legacy is prodigious even by the standards of the time-he wrote over 100 masses-and he was the first Renaissance composer to have a complete edition of almost his whole output published in modern notation.

Today some pieces are quite familiar, others less so and much of his superb music is almost unknown. The seventh recording in The Sixteen's celebrated series focuses on some of the pivotal women in Christian history - Mary the Mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, St Barbara and Susannah.