Palestrina - Prince of Music
Palestrina - Prince of Music is an Italian/German 2009 music film directed by Georg Brintrup. The subject is the life and music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca.1525-1594), famous Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music. He is the best-known 16th-century composer of the Roman School. Filmed in March 2009 on locations mainly in and around L'Aquila and Rome, most of the ancient buildings and historical interiors in the city of L'Aquila were destroyed by the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, only a few days after the end of shooting. Palestrina’s music in the film is directed by Flavio Colusso and the Roman Ensemble Seicentonovecento. The film was also titled The Liberation of Music or Die Befreiung der Musik when released in Germany.
R. J. Stove
Born in 1961 in Sydney, but later resident in Melbourne, Stove graduated from Sydney University in 1985. He is the author of four books: "Prince of Music"—a biography of the composer Palestrina; "The Unsleeping Eye"—a brief history of secret police from the sixteenth to the twentieth century ; "A Student's Guide to Music History"—summary history of classical music from the Middle Ages to the Second World War; and most recently "César Franck: His Life and Times". Also, he has co-edited, with James Franklin, "Cricket Versus Republicanism"—a posthumously published collection of essays by his father, the philosopher David Stove (1927–1994). Brought up as an atheist, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002.