Don Denis Silano - Marco Antonio Centorio e Pietro Heredia: Mottetti - Inni - Antifone (2020)

Among the Piedmontese ecclesiastical institutions that boast a highly respected liturgical-musical history, there is certainly the Cathedral of Vercelli, dedicated to St. Eusebio, the oldest episcopal seat in Piedmont. To it, since 1495, the Collegio degli Innocenti was joined, a place dedicated to the musical training of six pueri for the singing service of the Cathedral, although the little singers are witnessed at least since 1372. In the mid-sixteenth century the presence in the city of the ducal court of the Savoy family, together with the Holy Shroud, kept in the Cathedral from 1543 to 1561, allowed contact with the singers of what had once been the most prestigious musical chapel in Europe, some of whom, during their presence in the city, they offered their service to the Cathedral, even as teachers of the pueri. In the decades following the Council of Trent (1545 - 1563) and up to the long episcopate of Giacomo Goria (1611-1648), the Chair of Eusebius was occupied by important bishops who implemented the Council's dictates who, following the example of St. Charles Borromeo, they took particular care in choosing those who, as chapel masters, had to lead the musical reform along the lines of the new Roman rite, also introduced in Vercelli since 1575. Two of these masters from the first half of the seventeenth century, almost unknown to the modern public, deserve to be studied and re-evaluated: Pietro Heredia and Marco Antonio Centorio.