Given your dedication and research, what is your approach, your vision?

Ill take my glasses off. If I have to read, I prefer to take my glasses off.

Given your dedication and your research, explain your approach as Maestro.

When I was named maestro of the Sistine chapel in 2010, I arrived, I began rehearsals and I was
immediately aware that there was a situation a bit, in Italian we say, stagnant (stagnante, firme). There was
a way of singing the way one used to sing at the end of the 19th century in Italy even with many established
defects because that was the aesthetic in which the Sistine chapel was codified and in some way placed
within a rationale by Domenico Bartolucci who came from that aesthetic. For which reason, he did a body
of work in which he tried to give an understanding and a way of singing, a way of being of which, however,
even then when he was doing this, all the studies were saying the contrary. In some way, the Sistine chapel
was perhaps the only institution in the world and the last institution in the world which was singing
Gregorian chant and renaissance polyphony with an aesthetic orientation absolutely inadequate. This it is
necessary to say. Its true in the sense that all the studies, step by step, and the research, a great work
which the 20th century did for the Baroque but also for the renaissance, armed with semiological studies,
graphological studies, it gave us the instruments for finding an aesthetic orientation with which to execute
ancient music today. Today, Ill give you an example, it makes us laugh to hear Bach directed by Herbert
von Karajan. But not because it is not well made music. It is well made music with great sensitivity and
coherent phraseology. But, it is not Bach. That is in the sense that it is made with an aesthetic that is out of
date, old. There.

You tried to go

On the basis of this work, I had to begin to try to find ways to change this choir, maintaining what positive
things there were but stripping away the very, very many things which didnt work. What positive things
were there? Its an Italian choir with a very warm singing style, a soft way of. And this had to be
preserved. But it is necessary to acquire, for example, Im not speaking about aesthetic orientation, Im
speaking thus, in general. Its necessary to acquire a precision of intonation and intervals typical for
example of the English world. Its necessary to acquire it because it is not possible have this warm sound
but at the same time be imprecise in its intervals and bearings. And this was a big job in the beginningnot
to transform it into an English choir because it is not an English choir. But to receive what is positive out in
the world and metabolize it. This was the first major endeavor, not easy. Because, it might seem obvious,
but if a choir sings in one way for fifty years and also with a working rhythm when I arrived the Sistine
chapel choir practiced two or three hours a week. With me they practice three hours a day. Not because
Im mean, but I simply asked and insisted that the contract is enforced. Before it wasnt enforced. Everyone
who works in the Sistine chapel signs a long term contract with the Holy See which stipulates six hours of
work a day, thirty-six hours a week. You cant sing six hours a day. Therefore, we rehearse three hours a
day. Three hours are for personal study and the other three hours we sing together and one works for the
whole week

Its a full time job!

A job which exists everywhere in the world and, in the sense that, I didnt even find it ethical that a person
could earn two thousand euros a month working three hours a week. This doesnt exist in any country in
the world. Fantasyland doesnt exist in any country in the world. You can imagine how hard it was to
change these habits which can come to be understood as acquired rights. It wasnt easy. From two or three
hours a week to two or three hours every day. The search for a certain precision of intonation and stripping
the very rough edges typical of the decadence of the end of the 1800s, the bearing of sounds, the
imprecise vowels, etc., etc. This was the first big job. Then there followed a job more with regard to the
identity of the Sistine chapel choir. That is, the question, what is the Sistine chapel? What are the resources
of this institution? Well, the Sistine chapel is the most ancient choral institution still in existence. There are
testimonies from the fifth and sixth centuries of singers working near the pope. It has had many forms but
it is the most ancient choral formation in the world. Which has at its disposition the largest archive of
renaissance music, 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, fundamentally in the world, which is the Sistine chapel
archive which exists in the Apostolic Vatican Library. Therefore, this gives a precise identity to this
institution. It should be as it was in the 1500s, an institution absolutely avant-garde, in the 1500s the best
musicians of Europe sang in the Sistine chapel. Juaquin Dupris, Dufay, Palestrina, Nannino, Costanzo Festa,
Allegri. I have cited just the greatest musicians and these were not roman musicians. They came from all
over Europe, Morales, Guerrero, and sang in the Sistine chapel. There is an identity of this institution which
should be restored to that golden period when the greatest of the great were singing in it and in a place
which is the Sistine chapel. Because the choir has always sung there. Its not true the story that the choir
had to sing so loud as it sang before. The Screamin Chapel Choir as they called it, this is not true, because
they had to sing in the Basilica of St. Peter and everyone had to hear. It is very interesting that the Basilica
of St. Peter, Palestrina, for example, never knew it because while he was singing in the choir the current
basilica was under construction. The Constantinian Basilica didnt exist anymore and the current basilica
Therefore, all the great renaissance music was always and only performed in the Sistine Chapel and never
in the Basilica of St. Peter. The celebrations were moved from the Sistine Chapel to the Basilica of St. Peter
or in St. Peters Square after the Second Vatican Council.

Only?

Only. Before, everything was executed either in the Sistine Chapel or in the Pauline Chapel in the Quirinal
Palace when the pope went there. This means that if I have to recover a way of singing of the Sistine Chapel
Choir. I have to recover it in the place where it has always sung, that is, the Sistine Chapel.

And how did you do it?

I began to study the acoustics of the Sistine Chapel, to have rehearsals there. This meant finding a sound
that rendered well there because it was there that one had to recover an identity. To work on an intonation
which is no longer the intonation of the pianoforte, the tempered, but Pythagorean intonation, the ancient
intonation. This has always won out in the Sistine Chapel, in the Sistine Chapel one sings with brilliant
intervals, all the sounds seem muffled, for its specific acoustics they surely used this.

And then I began to do an entire serious study of the problem of renaissance writing and its interpretation.
The more fascinating work but also harder and more demanding. One begins to understand that behind
this writing of the renaissance there are rhetorical figures. And therefore our contemporary highs and lows,
changes of timing, are all already written in the renaissance writing and this should be interpreted. And I
having every day singers at my disposal, I had to enter into the perspective of creating a group that had
become exponentially expert in this.

In the Sistine chapel, where you have rehearsals, but it seems

The rehearsals are very elementary. Then Ill give you an example. We have to do a penitential liturgy now
this next Friday. Thursday, we take everything and do the rehearsal in the Basilica of St. Peter. Because we
have to calibrate everything that we have studied here precisely also with a very dry acoustic, calibrate it in
the Basilica of St. Peter. In the Basilica of St. Peter, now it is very easy to work now with the new stage that I
had built for the Jubilee. A very accurate study that was done so that the Sistine Chapel Choir, the Pontifical
Musical Chapel, can sing exactly as it does in the Sistine Chapel.

The acoustic which is produced on this stage using very interesting acoustical criteria. Its a scientific work
that was done putting together, integrating two European traditions, that of northern Europe with the
director in front and with the amphitheater typical of the Mediterranean culture. There is the beauty of the
amphitheater together with the convenience of to putting the score down when one sings together with an
appropriate amplification.

I have to ask about the microphones. Now there is the technology

In the Basilica of St. Peter, you cannot sing without microphones. There are two different lines of
microphones. Those which hang down directly above the singers only and exclusively for the amplification
within the Basilica of St. Peter. While in front of the choir, in a point determined with very detailed acoustic
engineering, you found in front a leophonic microphone which is for the international broadcast, those who
listen on television. They hear the real sound of the choir taken in the focal point of the choir.

Are you happy with the transmission on TV?

I found a dramatic situation and today we have an excellent international transmission of the choir, an
excellent international signal. A transmission which validates the work that we have done.

I have to tell you that for us

If you do a check from ten years ago, it has changed dramatically. Things have changed for the Sistine
Chapel Choir but the technology has also changed. We have tried to use a technology which validates the
study that we have done.

Yes, you are right. Ive been here for twenty years, and I have to tell you, complimenti! Beyond that, what
do you look for in a singer, beyond good intonation what do you look for in a singer?

The question which you asked pushes me to say something, what are the criteria upon which I hire a
person in the Sistine Chapel Choir? Surely, I am convinced that the choice of personnel on the basis of a
precise idea of sound which these institutions must have. If I find myself today before a great voice, a great
tenor, Id surely have to recommend them to go sing at the Opera of Rome or enter a competition in an
entelie but I dont need these voices here. I introduced for all those hired in the choir that they have the
necessary diplomas to be hired. Therefore, I ask everyone for a diploma from a conservatory, an academic
diploma in music obviously, and now I am asking everyone for a specialization in renaissance and baroque
singing because this is our specific environment. I am asking for a specialization precisely in the world in
which we really find ourselves. A big change I introduced, for exampleI dont say like it never was
beforeI introduced not without difficulty the idea that there are no contraltos but there is the acute
tenor who sings as an altus. This is the figure typical of renaissance music, the altus, as well as the acute
tenor, which make up part of the choir. Also on the basis of this, I had to hire people with the specific
quality of having altus voices.

I internationalized ever more the orientation of the Sistine Chapel Choir. This institution being of the
Catholic Church, kata holos, according to the whole, for the identity itself of being catholic the church has
to be ever more international. When we speak of the roman school, even in the history of music one speaks
of the roman school of the 16th century, I am ever more convinced, and I am convinced because of my
study, it is not the roman school because it is bound up with roman singers and romans who sing, but it
welcomed in Rome the best singers from all over Europe. There has to be an absolute internationalization
of these institutions to confirm the catholicity of the church and to take advantage of the best of the vocal
traditions that we have in the world.

This is absolutely new, isnt it?

I hired the first English singer in the Sistine Chapel Choir. My predecessor Bartolucci did not love the English
world for which reason, in general, he didnt want it. I hold that a bass or an English altus, one, if I make it
five, id make an English choir, but one improves the intonation, that is, the characteristics of the English
voice are not to be spurned. On the contrary, they are integrated in other very important vocal traditions.
But an American? Its been two hundred years that its been a country.

AhNext September we will be in the United States. We have begun an important collaboration with the
diocese of Detroit. I wouldnt exclude the possibility that in the future there may be. I would be very happy.
For example, we have a Peruvian that sings in the Sistine Chapel. We have a Venezuelan that sings in the
Sistine Chapel. The United States in itselfThe New World is represented. Surely, the discourse on the
United States, from the time that I began here I have looked to go to the United States. And finally we have
planned a beautiful trip to New York, Washington, Detroit, and then we are going to Toronto also. We have
planned a beautiful trip which also allows us to enter into ecumenical relations with St. Thomas of Fifth
Avenue. We are singing evensong together. It is very interesting. Because it is part of the current vocation
of the choir, ecumenical dialogue.

With the regard to the past, this ecumenical benefit of the music.

My vision was very simple. It was focalized together with Pope Benedict, following the visit that Pope
Benedict made in September of 2010 to London, an historic visit. I was named maestro of the Sistine Chapel
in October of 2010. On the basis of this, we entered step by step into an understanding where a good
foundation for ecumenical dialogue could be the serious, authentic cultural relations when the culture
becomes fluid, malleable by the senses. The first great ecumenical relationship which we had was with
Westminster Abbey in 2012. From that point, every year on the feast of St. Peter and Paul we began the
tradition that the choir sings together with a prestigious, non-Catholic choir. Therefore, we did it the next
year we did it with the Limanin choir of Lipsia, the choir of Bach (Lutherans), the next year we did it with
the choir of the Moscow Patriarchate, thus the Orthodox. Oxford, we did it with Canterbury Cathedral. This
year for the anniversary of the Lutherans we will do it together with the choir of Totsnabincor, near
Munich. This ecumenical work I think is a part of a vocation the choir acquired with the ecclesial
comprehension of the 20th century of the problem of ecumenical dialogue, of ecumenism to find points of
unity. We see that to work seriously in music in a culturally appropriate manner allows us to find many
more points of unity than those which divide us from the Lutherans, from the Anglicans. This is very
important. We have truly very high and friendly relations with Westminster Abbey. They came certainly the
25th of July, the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, we sang vespers together. We, all the times that the
choir goes to London, we sing evensong together. It is very interesting also the very good relations which
have been created with the Anglican Center of Rome. The vocation to ecumenism, I believe, for those who
work in culture, is a necessary vocation. You cannot do anything less than this. It is a very important thing.

To have begun and signed exclusively with Deutschgramophone, the most prestigious record company in
the world, they came to us, I was very honored. They sought us out, seeing a change had been made.
Therefore, with Deutschgramophone we will record, for the first time, cds recorded in the Sistine Chapel,
the first Cantate Domino in the Sistine Chapel, the music of the popes. We have recorded last year the
Missa Papa Marcelli with all the motets of Palestrina, a monographic cd of Palestrina on Mercy. A
monographic cd on Christmas from the archives of the Pontifical Musical Chapel, we have already recorded
the first and we will record the second in May, all the renaissance music, practically beginning with Dufay
and going up to Allegri, the best of the music sung at the papal celebrations for Christmas in the
renaissance.

About Christmas?

On Christmas, advent and Christmas, up to the presentation of the Lord in the Temple, the closure of the
season of Christmas. It is an interesting cd because we have begun a deep channel of work and always
everything which we record comes from the archive of the Sistine Chapel Choir in the Pontifical Vatican
Library because it is an archive where there is a lot of unedited material or many particular things executed
with a lot of ornamentation, with a lot of color, technically called minor, which the choir in the 16th century
had specialized in singing, a choral formation between the motet and madrigal.
Manuscripts of Palestrina?

There are many codices and manuscripts. They could be of the authors themselves or copyists of the time
who made them.

Ive seen things written by Palestrina at Santa Cecilia.

I found in the first cd Cantate domini with Deutschgramophone we recorded the original miserere of
Allegri. I found the manuscript of Allegri. Those misereres which everyone knows with Do sharp is a whole
thing that arrived later. We recorded the original version, the Codices 205, 206, of 1661. In itself, the source
of Allegri. Doing the research now for the cd we will probably record in 2018, Ive probably found the
miserere by which Allegri was inspired to write his Costanzo Festa. I believe the maestro of the Sistine
Chapel has to do this work because if he doesnt do it, no one will do it.

How do you do it all? Research, rehearsals, the cerimonies of the Pope

There are no other things. The maestro of the Sistine Chapel has to know, just as the maestro of the teatro
del Opera, the maestro of Santa Cecilia, he has to know that in the years in which he does this job, he does
only this job. He cant do other things. It might seem like a lot. There are the three hours of rehearsal every
day. Thankfully it is in the afternoon that we do the rehearsals, 2:30 to 5:30. Because that leaves me the
whole morning for study and research. If you rehearse, you have to have material to rehearse. You have to
find the material to be rehearsed. In the daily rehearsals, there is all the work for the ceremonies of the
pope. In the rehearsals we prepare above all for the ceremonies of the pope, which is our first thing, the
concert activity and the recording of cds. These are the things. Both research and composition, what is the
identity of the maestro of the Sistine Chapel? He certainly has to be an able composer. He has to write
music when there is need. But not only. He has to have a sense of the choir, this almost artiginal capacity.
For the work of the choir, you cant leave the adults of the choir, even if they are professionals, without a
daily exercise in intonation, to seek a color for the choir. Its a daily exercise, a daily exercise which goes
beyond their personal study. If you leave them without daily exercise, there is an interesting phenomenon
which takes place. Not only do they not get better, they get worse. Everyday exactly like when you
personally study an instrument. If I am a professional musician, if I have to take an exam in an instrument, I
have to study every day. And if I dont study one day, I can tell the difference. This is the same thing. Daily
study entering into these institutions has been good for these institutions, because they entered into a
serious professionalism.

And the children, they are so sweet, how have they affected you, in your heart, in your work?

The children are, a bit, the point of the diamond of these institutions. First of all, I speak scientifically. Why
do we have boys and not women? Once and for all it is well to clarify this. One might say oh, the Catholic
Church works still with boys while today women sing. But we have boys simply because the type of
repertoire which we do historically is done with boys. If we had to sing the repertoire of the 19th century,
we would need women for stylistic coherence, aesthetic relevance. We have boys and the boys give us an
aesthetic relevance for the renaissance music that we have to do. First point, boys and not girls. First of all,
an aesthetic relevance. The second point, why boys and not girls? Because the true white voice is the boys
voice. In the sense that, when he still has the voice of a boy, the voice has not changed, in the time in which
he sings in the choir, there is a change in his voice which does not happen with girls. Boys produce color in
the choir which the girls would not give. Because the true white voice which is that of the boys produces
nuances which the girl does not precisely because it is a voice that changes. It begins as a flatter voice and
then bit by bit Ill say something which goes beyond the aesthetic relevance but is very important. In the
sense that this is why we have boys and we do not have women. We try to maintain this aesthetic
relevance because it is absolutely important to produce a voice which is scientifically serious.
Then I take a step ahead, more profound, the experience which a boy has here is a unique experience.
Every year we do about 600 auditions to choose a class of 12 boys. They do the preparatory year in the 4th
grade of elementary school and they begin to sing in the 5th. Their time of life in the choir, from the 5th
grade until the change of their voices. Some are fortunate and they can go up to the third year of middle
school without their voices changing, or it changes and they learn to do the falsetto. The falsetto can stay.
Generally, with the end of the second year of middle school their voices have not yet changed. However,
the experience which a boy has in this period is unique in the world because they live as a professional.
They rehearse daily. They also rehearse in all three hours a day. Because they do about two hours with the
maestro of the boys, Mons. Pava, and an hour in the afternoon with me. Thus every day we do three hours
of music together. A boy one has to educate in a healthy discipline. The discipline of how you sit. The
discipline of the vocal organ. He leads the life of a professional. This independently from the fact that one
goes on to be a musician because not all of those here are here to be musicians. This communicates a
scientific methodology of work, constant, daily. They know that to record with Deutschgramophone they
have to study the sources. They read the ancient keys. There is a scientific character, where whatever is
said or executed has a scientific reason of research. There are no axioms or dogmas from this point of view.
There are things which have to be explained. A boy perceives a method which he carries with him for the
rest of his life.

Ill make an analogy. Its like doing a doctorate; it is no longer the content that one learns. Because as soon
as I defend my thesis, it is already out of date. Already the bibliography has increased. Already at the
moment that you defend it, the research is out of date. It is not the things that I learn for a doctorate in
research as much as the methodology that I learn doing the doctorate. I learn that whatever affirmation
that I make I have to justify with a footnote. It teaches us to live with the logic of footnotes. It is the same
logic that we have with the boys here. I believe in the culture of today, where often everything is so
superficial. Or where we have fluid relationships that are consumed in a moment. To have an institution
that is occupied with scientific work. If I say, this is red. I put a note at the foot of the page explaining why it
is red. What are the reasons why I say what I say? Or if I make an interpretive choice, I have to explain it
with reasons, and this is very important for the acquisition of a method. All of this musical work which can
have an artistic outcome, it is a profound work of education, which serves to form the men who they will
be tomorrow.

My last question is, where do you find your inspiration?

Im fortunate in that I work in continual contact with the Holy Scriptures. All the texts with which we work
are always biblical texts. I have the good fortune to work with texts which are already very lofty. Therefore,
I dont have to go far to find sources of inspiration because I have them at hand every day. I maintain that
my greatest good fortune in doing this work is having daily contact with Gregorian chant and renaissance
music. And I have understood having daily contact with it, how this music, with its grammar, with its
attitudes, with the aesthetic of that historical moment, is occupied with one single thing: to give an audible
form to a text, and giving an audible form to a text it produces an exegesis of the text, explained the text.
Its the most surprising thing that I have found every day, even with the interpretative change Sistine
Chapel. Im speaking of renaissance music. The rhetorical figures of the renaissance, the attitudes, they give
an interpretation of the text.

Ill give you an example, all the times when Palestrina has to speak of the Gloria. Hosanna in excelsis which
generally when you listen to the recordings which are available of the Papa Marcelli is always sung strongly.
Interpreted correctly the rhetorical figures, the renaissance writing, trying to uncover the changes of touch,
it is all very soft, almost subdued. We have just now recorded in the Sistine Chapel for Deutschgramophone
a motet and choir Christus natus est! All the angels say Glory to God in the heights of heaven. One expects
that this Glory to God in the heights of heaven would be an explosion. However, the rhetorical figure which
Palestrina uses is the distinction of the pianissimo. Its interesting how you become aware working with this
every day. You become aware of this only by working on it every day. This work has brought me to
understand how the preoccupation was just that of serving the word and creating an exegesis of it. This is
very important because one sees how it is a music in service of the word, with the preoccupation of making
an exegesis. And I understood why in the motu propio of Pius X of 1903, he indicates as two models the
Gregorian chant and polyphony, but surely not as aesthetic models because they have an outdated
aesthetics but for the way in which they did this work. They gave audible form to a text and they made an
exegesis. This is the thing that has most.it changed my way of writing. Step by step, that is, curiously,
studying seriously the ancient, the ancient music, one becomes ever more preoccupied with the dialogue
with modernity, with the world of today. Because you become aware how these were preoccupied.
Palestrina had the preoccupation with dialoging with his historical moment. Palestrina did not write like
Juaquin Dupre. When there was the Council of Trent he changed his way of writing. They were people who
wrote in their historical moments. The church was not great because it was conserving. It was great
because it looked ahead. It occupied itself with receiving, with changing. Neverall that which tastes of the
conservative are futile processes destined to end because they dont meet up with principle mission of the
church which is evangelization. To evangelize I have to speak to the man of today. The more I work on
ancient music, the more I write music, the more I am preoccupied with dialoguing with modernity, the man
of today. After Mahler, after Wagner, after the fragmentation, how can we receive this musical world, this
thought, this development of the music, this research of the music, within the celebration. Because the
liturgy should not be only something which looks back, but which contains ancient elements, because they
are precious, their being ancient means maintaining a certain relevance for today. But at the same time, it
has to have the preoccupation for dialogue with the culture with modernity. If it lacks this, we make a
museum. A museum doesnt save anyone. A museum doesnt evangelize anyone. A museum doesnt have
the one preoccupation which the church has to have, which is that of evangelization. All that we do here in
the Sistine Chapel, what is it good for in the end? Evangelization. Why do we have concerts? Evangelization.
Why do we record with Deutschgramophone? We have never had as a Church an absolute propagation of
what we do through a prestigious record label. Why do I record with Deutschgramophone? Fundamentally,
because I know I can reach those who are far away. And that they can find in this music, in this research, in
this scientific discipline a street, a door, with which to meet God.

Thank you. I wish you all success.

Also next Friday, youll be at the penitential liturgy.

Yes.

Then, Ill give you a scoop for the penitential liturgy. You will hear the miserere of Allegri both in the
original version of codex 205/206, but also in the form that we all know with the do sharp. But what is the
scoop? The children will not sing the do sharp because historically the castrati would sing it. So the solo
quartet has just hired in the Sistine Chapel Choir a new altus who can perform falsetto and even arrive,
singing falsetto, at the do sharp. So there are four men who are singing. This is the scoop. You will even
hear in St. Peters two verses of the do sharp.