Domenico Bartolucci
Encyclopedia
Domenico Bartolucci is an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 Cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

 of the Catholic Church. He is Director Emeritus of the Sistine Chapel Choir
Sistine Chapel Choir
The Sistine Chapel Choir is a choir based in Vatican City and is one of the oldest religious choirs in the world. At present, the choir comprises approximately twenty adult singers and thirty unpaid boy choristers .-Middle Ages :Although it is known that the Church, from her earliest days,...

 and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, based in Italy.It is based at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, and was founded by the papal bull, Ratione congruit, issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prominent in Western...

, and is recognized in the field of music both as a director and a prolific composer. Considered among the most authoritative interpreters of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...

, Bartolucci led the Sistine Chapel Choir in performances worldwide, and also directed numerous concerts with the Choir of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, including a tour of the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

On 20 November 2010, Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

 Benedict XVI elevated him to the College of Cardinals
College of Cardinals
The College of Cardinals is the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church.A function of the college is to advise the pope about church matters when he summons them to an ordinary consistory. It also convenes on the death or abdication of a pope as a papal conclave to elect a successor...

. Because Bartolucci is over the age of 80, he is not eligible to vote in any future Papal conclave
Papal conclave
A papal conclave is a meeting of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a Bishop of Rome, who then becomes the Pope during a period of vacancy in the papal office. The Pope is considered by Roman Catholics to be the apostolic successor of Saint Peter and earthly head of the Roman Catholic Church...

.

Early career

At a very young age, Bartolucci entered the seminary in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, where he was recruited as a singer . Upon the death of his master Bagnoli, Bartolucci succeeded him as director of the Chapel of the Duomo of Florence. In those years he began to compose his first masses, motets, and organ music, as well as madrigals and chamber music.

At the end of 1942 Bartolucci went to Rome in order to deepen the knowledge of sacred music. Having served as Deputy Master of the St. John Lateran, in 1947 he was appointed Master of the Liberian Choir of St. Mary Major, succeeding Licinio Refice
Licinio Refice
Licinio Refice was an Italian composer and priest. With Monsignor Lorenzo Perosi, he represented the new direction taken by Italian church music in the twentieth century....

, absent. In 1952, on the advice of Lorenzo Perosi, he was appointed Deputy Master of the Sistine Chapel.

Bartolucci and the Sistine Chapel Choir

When Perosi died in 1956, Pope Pius XII gave him the position of permanent director of the Pontifical Sistine Chapel Choir. In 1997 Bartolucci was replaced at the helm of the Sistine Chapel by Msgr. Giuseppe Liberto, an event which aroused some controversy in the context of liturgical music. Among those most against the decision, motivated by Papal Master of Ceremonies Archbishop Piero Marini
Piero Marini
Piero Marini is a Roman Catholic archbishop who is president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses. For twenty years he served as Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, in charge of the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff...

, was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who after he became Pope Benedict XVI, recalled Bartolucci to direct a concert in the Sistine Chapel on June 24, 2006, in which he offered music from the repertoire of sacred polyphony of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina alongside his own compositions including the motet Oremus pro Pontifice Nostro Benedicto ("Let us pray for our Pontiff Benedict"), dedicated to the Pope.

The ensemble of the Pontifical Sistine Chapel Choir upon the death of Perosi was in poor condition. The situation was restored, however, thanks to the commitment of Bartolucci and personal interest of Pope John XXIII. In the forty years of Bartolucci's leadership, the choir balanced the obligation of papal liturgies with tours in various countries throughout the world, including Austria, France, Belgium, the Philippines, Australia, the United States, Turkey, Poland, and Japan. In the years of the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...

 Bartolucci, against abandoning Latin, committed himself that the liturgical reform should not take a direction hostile to sacred music.

Activity as a composer

Bartolucci was also dedicated to teaching and composition. He was a child prodigy, having composed his first Mass at age 12; his best known Mass is the "Misa Jubilei," written in the Holy Year 1950. The body of his work already published fills more than forty volumes and includes Masses, motets, madrigals, hymns, symphonic, organ, and chamber music, and above all a series of oratorios for soloists, chorus and orchestra. His three-act opera Brunelleschi has never yet been performed.

The concept of music for Bartolucci is based on naturalness and spontaneity, avoiding abstractions and abstruseness. His reference points are Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

, Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...

, and Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

. Characteristic of Bartolucci's aesthetic conception is a respect for tradition, whose base lies in "a considerable severity of song and a certain limpid and solid polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....

", as he describes in the preface to his First Book of Motets.

Creation as cardinal

On 20 October 2010, Pope Benedict XVI announced Mgr Bartolucci's appointment to the College of Cardinals
College of Cardinals
The College of Cardinals is the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church.A function of the college is to advise the pope about church matters when he summons them to an ordinary consistory. It also convenes on the death or abdication of a pope as a papal conclave to elect a successor...

 in the consistory
Consistory
-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....

 scheduled for the 20 November recognising him for his service to the Church. He was created Cardinal-Deacon of Santissimi Nomi di Gesù e Maria in Via Lata, usually referred to as Gesù e Maria. At his elevation, Bartolucci became the fourth-oldest member of the College. Because he is over the age of 80, under the terms of Pope Paul VI's 1970 motu proprio
Motu proprio
A motu proprio is a document issued by the Pope on his own initiative and personally signed by him....

 Ingravescentem Aetatem he is ineligible to vote in any future Papal conclave. Bartolucci was excused from the requirement that a cardinal be or become a bishop.

External links

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