Father Armando Pierucci This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. www.divine-art.com

   www.divine-art.com/CD/rev27004 - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/25/2007   Last Visited: 3/25/2007

   Pierucci was born in Italy; since 1988 he has been the organist at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and has written much sacred music.
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   Armando Pierucci studied at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, the Naples Conservatoire and the Rossini Conservatoire in Pesaro. He is a Franciscan monk who is the organist of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and professor of sacred music at the Studium Theologicum Jerusolymitanum.
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   The poems in ,De Profundis' obviously have a profound personal significance to both Regina Derieva and Armando Pierucci as the poems have relevance to the events in the Middle East whilst they were both still living there.
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   I could not help feeling that Pierucci has felt constrained by his admiration for the poetry. The setting is such that the words are always clear, but I am not a Russian speaker so unable to understand the poetry directly. This is, I suspect, a disadvantage. The piece would probably work best when sung in the language of the hearers so that the music forms a backdrop to Derieva's profound words. Pierucci's music never seems to match the profundity of the words; it serves simply as a handmaid who provides a suitable background to facilitate our appreciation.
   
   The issue of the words also made me wonder in what language Pierucci set the poems. Derieva's poems are written in Russian and they are sung in this language on the recording, but the notes are unclear about what language Pierucci set the poems to music. Russian is a profoundly polysyllabic language, so if Pierucci set the poems in Italian translation this could have a strong effect on the nature of the music. As it is, the music underlying the Russian text contains a suspicious number of repetitive chords.
   
   The Aidija chamber choir sing admirably, with a clear clean tone and they are never stretched by Pierucci's music.

2. 2. Armando Pierucci

   www.divine-art.com/AS/Pierucci - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/25/2007   Last Visited: 12/17/2007

   Armando Pierucci
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   Father Armando Pierucci was born in Maiolati Spontini (Ancona), Italy, on September 3, 1935. He graduated from the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, from the Conservatory of Naples, and from the Conservatory G. Rossini of Pesaro. His majors were organ, conducting, and composing. He has conducted choirs and given organ recitals in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and the Holy Land. Since 1988, he has been the organist at Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Until 1999, he was Chief Editor of the Italian magazine entitled La Terra Santa (Holy Land). Presently, he is professor of sacred music at the Studium Theologicum Jerusolymitanum and Director of the Magnificat Musical Institute. Fr. Pierucci has composed music for organ, choir, recorder, accordion, brass, and piano including: 4 Cori su testo di S. Quasimodo (Ediz. Berben); Callido verde (Ediz. Berben); Missa de Angelis Pacis; Missa Regina Pacis; Missa Magnificabant Omnes; Missa Regina Palestinae; Sonata for Organ and Choir; The Hymnal; Zahr Er-Rahm (fifteen songs for voice and piano); Mathaq Al-Sharq -­ A Flavor of the East (for piano by four hands); Via Crucis (Cantata for Soloists, Choir, and Organ); Missa "Mar Youssef" (San Giuseppe); Quaderno d'Organo ­14 composizioni per organo (Ediz. Armelin Musica Padova); Missa in honorem S.Jacobi de Marchia;

3. 3. www.divine-art.com

   www.divine-art.com/CD/rev27002 - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/25/2007   Last Visited: 3/25/2007

   The music, by Fr, Armando Pierucci, ofm, organist at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, seems to cross many barriers.
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   Pierucci's restrained settings not only feel apt for the forces (the Lithuanian Chamber Choir Aidija), but embrace an idiom that is timeless.
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   It was set to music in 1996 for soloists, chorus and organ by Fr Armando Pierucci, organist at the catholic Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
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   Via Crucis is a cantata by Fr. Armando Pierucci, with texts by the Russian poet Regina Derieva, in the form of meditations based on the Stations of the Cross.
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   The musical language of Fr. Pierucci is eclectic and none the worse for it. He blends Italianate lyricism with Slav majesty and gravitas.
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   The genre of 20 th century Catholic church music by members of the clergy is a genuinely fascinating one, and this new cantata on the Stations of the Cross by Fr Armando Pierucci follows in the notable line of works by such masters as Don Lorenzo Perosi.
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   Pierucci was born in 1935 and, as we have every right to expect, is musically a traditionalist. If there is barely a phrase, or a progression, in the work which would have surprised Buxtehude, in taking Christ's dictum: "The same yesterday, today and tomorrow" as a starting point, Pierucci has created a deeply-felt and clearly moving work of art, given the right circumstances of performance, which is exceptionally well performed and recorded here by Lithuanian forces singing in Russian.