Music: Vatican Choir

The ” Sistine Choir” now tours America.

Its Official Status. When Vatican ceremonies need a choir, the singers are recruited from without. These Roman singers are popularly known as the Sistine* Choir. They continue the traditions of the old official choir. Their leader, Don Antonio Rella, has an official title, ” Perpetual Vice-Director of the Pontifical Chapel.” The choir crosses the seas without the official sanction of Pope Pius XI, but apparently with his consent.

Its History and Personnel. For centuries the Sistine Choir of the Vatican represented the most august development of music, reaching its greatest glory in the medieval days of the unaccompanied chorus.

“Male singers only” has been its rule. The sopranos and contraltos were not the voices of boys; they were ” castrati “—eunuchs imported from infidel lands. More recently, special instruction has been employed to retain the soprano and contralto tones of boys after the natural break in the voice. The choir now consists of 34 men and 20 boys. All wear white surplices over cassocks of purple and scarlet.

The advance of the orchestra relegated the choir to revered desuetude, but the insatiable interest of the present Century has rediscovered and reawakened it.

The Music. Only compositions written in the traditional liturgical musical forms of the Church are presented. Perosi (TIME, May 19) dominates the programs.

* The Sistine Chapel, made artistically famous by Michael Angelo, is the chief chapel of the Vatican, intimately associated, with the Pope.