Sandro Magister today
offers a biting polemic against the appointment of Fr. Massimo Palombella, director of the Interuniversity Choir of Rome, as director of the Sistine Chapel choir. Magister, who is close to the former director Domenico Bartolucci (the director for life who was "tossed out in 1997") writes that "the quality of [Palombella's] conducting raises merciless criticism from many, including the one who taught him to no effect, Valentino Miserarchs Grau, president of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, Bartolucci's successor as choirmaster of the basilica of Saint Mary Major, and another prominent interpreter of the Roman school of polyphony."
In Magister's telling, the appointment would be a disaster, and a far better choice would be to leave the current director in place. And is this because Palombella rejects Benedict's liturgical and musical aims? Apparently not, at least not from what I can tell from his
wikipedia entry. He has extensive training in music and theology, and specializes in Roman polyphony - at least according to his public biographies.
Maybe Magister is right and maybe not. It is impossible to tell from this distance. But Magister's piece has the ring of a polemic that is more about internal politics than it is about music as such, at least from my reading.
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