The second in I Fagiolini’s series exploring the ‘Colossal Baroque’ and the dazzling multi-choir soundworld of Orazio Benevoli – a crucial ‘lost’ figure in 17th-century Italian music. The four-choir work on this new recording, ‘Missa Benevola’, is accentuated with even more instrumental colour to allow the ear to appreciate the dance between the four separated ensembles. Enjoy the famous ‘mule’ technique that Handel noted 50 years later and then re-used in Messiah.

Alongside this, Carissimi’s well-known Jephte transposed to the lower pitch used in Rome at the time, injecting a more profound colour into both individual voices and its famously plangent final chorus.

All the Masses in I Fagiolini’s Benevoli series are premiere recordings.

I Fagiolini’s large-scale recording projects include world premieres of Striggio ‘Mass in 40 Parts’, Viadana Vespers, works by the Gabrielis and now Benevoli’s ‘Colossal Baroque’ multi-choir masses. Consort premieres include Byrd, Tomkins, Croce, Striggio, Francaix, Milhaud and Joanna Marsh.

The ensemble’s innovative work is now as much online as it is live, including collaborative cross-art projects on stages around the world and short (multi award-winning) music videos with Polyphonic Films. The group’s YouTube series, SingTheScore, combines serious analysis with off-the-wall humour while Choral Chihuahua, presented by Robert Hollingworth, Nicholas Mulroy and Eamonn Dougan, is the top UK choral podcast and is now in its ninth season.

Signature projects include the fully immersive The Full Monteverdi and Betrayal (dir. John La Bouchardière); Tallis in Wonderland (with live and recorded voice); Simunye, the South African collaboration; and How Like An Angel with Australian contemporary circus company CIRCA for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and also at Perth International Arts Festival, Lincoln Center, New York and in cathedrals across Europe. The group’s French 20th-century Amuse-Bouche included the first recording of Jean Françaix’s 12-voice Ode à la Gastronomie (also on YouTube). Monteverdi programmes from L’Orfeo (dir.Tom Guthrie) with masks and puppets and 1610 & 1641 Vespers; and Leonardo - Shaping The Invisible, with Prof. Martin Kemp and projections of Leonardo’s art and designs.

I Fagiolini is an Associate Ensemble at the University of York and celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2026 with, ‘We’re not Dead Yet’.

I Fagiolini and Robert Hollingworth are managed worldwide by Percius (Libby Percival and Desireé Ayton).

In May 2023 CORO and I Fagiolini announced a new collaboration to release eight albums on the label over the following four years, building up to I Fagiolini’s 40th anniversary in 2026 (and founder-director Robert Hollingworth’s 60th birthday).

The collaboration will introduce five new albums: three world-premiere albums of multi-choir Masses by 17th-century Roman Orazio Benevoli in new performance editions by Robert Hollingworth; a unique low pitch recording (as indicated by the composer) of Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Tenebrae Responsories (COR16204); and a 40th anniversary album of works by Monteverdi.

In tandem, CORO will also re-release three of I Fagiolini’s acclaimed albums previously available on the Decca label: the Gramophone-Award-winning Alessandro Striggio - Mass in 40 Parts (COR16199); 1612 Italian Vespers (premiere recording of Viadana Vesper psalms and Hugh Keyte’s reconstruction of a 7-choir Gabrieli Magnificat); and Amuse Bouche – which featured premiere recordings of Françaix and Milhaud.

These complementary strands celebrate some of I Fagiolini’s most important recordings whilst also continuing Hollingworth’s mission to look at neglected repertoire and areas of performance practice which substantially change the way the music is heard.

CORO has also released two critically acclaimed stand-alone recordings by I Fagiolini: Leonardo – Shaping the Invisible and John Wilbye – Draw On Sweet Night which won a Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.