ABSTRACT
The presence of older singers is explained by a phrase in the constitution that declares that membership in the papal choir carried lifetime tenure, but the presence of acknowledged incompetents is a hint that something had gone wrong in the quality-control department. As Christopher Reynolds has pointed out, Martin’s observations are useful for the mention of instruments other than the organ in the churches of Rome and for confirmation that the papal choir sang without instrumental accompaniment of any kind. In short, we may really not want to hear the music the Sistine choir sang in the Age of Palestrina in the way that they sang it. Johannes Burkhard was a notorious curmudgeon who did not care much about music anyway, so until more evidence emerges perhaps we can keep our illusions about the papal choir during that particular ‘Golden Age’.
