The church of San Salvatore in Lauro, in the heart of Rome, a few steps from Piazza Navona, was packed with followers of Roman polyphony, who attended the Christmas concert on the cold night of Saturday, December 21.
Cardinal Dominique Fracoise Josep Mambertì, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, questioned by Exaudi about this event and such a packed church, said: “This is satisfying because we see that there are many people who appreciate Roman polyphony, which is the specialty of the Choir of the Lauretana Musical Chapel, of the Bartolucci Foundation. This choir is dedicated to the production of sacred music, specifically that of the Roman polyphonic school of Bartolucci and not only”… Questioned about sacred polyphony, the cardinal recalled that “The Second Vatican Council reaffirmed that Gregorian chant is the proper chant of the Church. This should be remembered more often.”
Maestro Adriano Caroletti directed the choir, Joseph Solé Coll, the first organist of the Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, played the organ, and Elisa Gerolimetto was the trumpet soloist.
The choir demonstrated a high level of interpretation, with music by Domenico Bartolucci, Lorenzo Perosi, St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Franz Xaver Gruber, and Handel’s Hallelujah and Christmas carols.
In 2004, the Bartolucci Foundation created its own polyphonic choir, to spread and promote knowledge of the most famous composers of sacred music, from the Renaissance to the present day. Thus began the Lauretano choir, the first years with the same maestro Bartolucci.
In 2015, the Lauretana Musical Chapel was created, which carries out its service in the Roman Sanctuary of San Salvatore in Lauro, a reference point for spirituality linked to the Madonna of Loreto and St. Pio of Pietrelcina.
“When Bartoluci died, Maestro Luciano Luciani, also from the Sistine Chapel, took over the direction and since 2017 the new maestro is Adriano Caroletti, tenor of the Sistine Chapel and who has a particular gift,” Alessandro Biciocchi, Secretary General of the Foundation, told Exaudi.
Maestro Bartolucci was an extraordinary and unique artist, composer and director of the Choir of the Pontifical Musical Sistine Chapel. He accompanied the solemn liturgies of the successors of Peter for almost fifty years. He spread the great tradition of sacred music throughout the world.
Pope Francis said of him that he was an “illustrious composer and musician, who exercised his long and intense ministry, especially through sacred music that is born from faith and expresses faith.”
Benedict XVI was convinced that “music is truly the universal language of beauty, capable of uniting people of good will and leading them to raise their gaze upward and open themselves to the absolute Good and Beauty, which have their ultimate source in God himself.”
The parish of San Salvatore in Lauro is very active even with the most fragile, and for these holidays it has distributed Christmas baskets: “I am particularly happy that so many fragile people – declared to the AdnKronos agency, Monsignor Pietro Bongiovanni, parish priest of the church – have received Christmas baskets full of goodness from the Association of Restaurants of the Historic Center. This is the Rome we want in view of the Jubilee.”
