Take a peek at the latest additions to Pope Francis’ music collection

The collection is continuing to grow, as shown by a recent tweet from Cardinal Ravasi. The image shows eight new records that the pope sent his musical librarian, in a mix of CDs and vinyl. The works are mostly classical, with the majority of these leaning towards the sacred, but there is also an Italian female rocker from the 60s. 

Thanks to a little sleuthing, we were able to identify each of the albums from what little of their covers were shown. There was one, however, which we were unable to pin down. The vinyl record on the bottom left of the picture features a man in a brown coat, placed in front of a black background. If you can identify the record from this ambiguous cover, please let us know!

Let's take a look at what the pope has been listening to lately. 

Il Volo is an Italian trio of operatic pop singers that became a sensational hit in 2010. As there are three of them, there is always a close association with the Three Tenors, and in fact the band was formed to emulate them. 

Well, in 2016 they finally got their chance to sing with one of the most famed opera singers in the world, and one of the Three Tenors, Placido Domingo. Unfortunately, Domingo is getting on in years and he performed as the conductor on this one. Still, Il Volo’s performance benefited from Domingo’s lifetime of musical know-how for this epic album. 

Bach composed this masterpiece of sacred music in 1724, to be used in the Good Friday Liturgy. It is an oratorio, which is sort of like an opera but without the acting and usually with religious themes. Unfortunately, we were not able to track down the same recording Pope Francis has, but this is a phenomenal rendition with some of the best singers we’ve ever heard in the parts of Jesus and Pilate. 

Here we have another classical work, this time from the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. Written in 1766, the work has long been associated with St. Cecilia’s feast day. The score is impressive in its own right, as it is a fantastic mix of Baroque and Romantic styles, but its story is even more so. 

Apparently Haydn lost the manuscript after he finished composing the Mass. While some musicians would freak out at such a loss, Haydn didn’t even sweat. The master composer simply rewrote the whole thing from memory. While there’s no way to corroborate this, Haydn believed the rewrite was exactly the same as the original. 

Written by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt in 2009, this piece is sung in Russian. The composition is based on an old Russian Orthodox lament, which is normally sung during Lent. The work envisions Adam’s suffering and despair over the loss of the paradise he knew in Eden. The lyrics translate to: 

Here Pope Francis switches speeds with an upbeat rock tune from the “swinging sixties.” Catarina Caselli is an Italian born musician and producer who debuted in 1966. It is actually a cover, but it enjoyed incredible success, briefly topping the Italian charts. The lyrics speak of confession of a betrayal and an unapologetic proposal of reconciliation.

Here we have a collection of works by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla. The album is fully instrumental and the music merges Classical tones with jazz rhythms and tango themes. Piazzolla was well known for revolutionizing the tango, in the nuevo tango style. This work, however, is not really for dancing. Steeped in Romantic era orchestration, this work almost sounds more like the soundtrack to a film. 

Aside from the album which we could not identify, this was the hardest to track down on the list. It appears to be an album of Ambrosian chant, which is distinct from Gregorian chant in it’s lack of uniformity. Ambrosian chant tends to feature longer and more freely moving melismatic lines, or the portions where the singer goes through scales while singing one syllable. 

As with Gregorian chant, the sheet music is simple and leaves a lot of the interpretation up to the conductor. Because of this, it is very rare for two performances of an Ambrosian chant to sound exactly the same.