Amproprification #6: Missa Papae Marcelli, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Finished 2020
7 Voices and automated amplification
duration: 40'

In his Amproprifications, Maximilian Marcoll takes existing compositions and superimposes them with a precisely composed layer of amplification. No note of the original is altered: the music is left intact, yet transformed through shifts in loudness, fading, or abrupt cuts. This process turns amplification itself into a compositional tool, both magnifying and refracting the original.
With Amproprification VI, Marcoll turns to Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, composed almost 460 years ago. The Renaissance polyphony unfolds in full, yet the amplification highlights the distance that separates us from it today. What often feels like a direct, timeless connection—a mass that “speaks across the centuries”—is revealed as a mediated, historically charged experience. Marcoll’s work makes this duality audible: the living sound of the mass on one hand, and on the other, its cultural aura as a revered monument refracted through contemporary ears.

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Past Performances:


Apr 25th, 2025
Dublin, Project Arts Centre, Ampro VI @ Music Current
Jun 30th, 2023
Weimar, KET Halle, Inaugural Concert
May 17th, 2022
DLF, Radio, Musikszene
Dec 10th, 2021
Valencia (USA), Wild Beast, Amproprification VI @ CALARTS
Dec 4th, 2021
Berlin, Lage Egal, Amproprification VI: Exhibition
Sep 11th, 2021
Berlin, HAU 1, Amproprification VI: MISSA PAPAE MARCELLI, CTM
Sep 11th, 2021
Berlin, HAU 1, Amproprification VI: MISSA PAPAE MARCELLI, CTM
Sep 10th, 2021
Berlin, HAU 1, Amproprification VI: MISSA PAPAE MARCELLI, CTM
Sep 10th, 2021
Berlin, HAU 1, Amproprification VI: MISSA PAPAE MARCELLI, CTM

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Interview by Marija Mitrovic about compositional approaches, electronic thinking, innovation, the political and technological potential of sound amongst other topics