We managed to escape the UK for a short break in Italy and I was able to get to Sunday Mass in the Duomo in Milan (which has featured before here). They are keen to make you pay to see the interior of the building but there is an unmarked entrance at the north-west corner for worshippers to enter by at service times. The service took place at the main altar under the crossing and I sat in the nave.
There was a small all-male choir of nine or ten singers, of lay-clerk standard. They sat in the north transept behind a screen (blocked from my view by a pillar) and sang a motet by ?Monteverdi and a Mass setting as well as plainchant. They were miked, which I hope was just because they were few in number, although they didn’t need it. The building is sufficiently spacious that they were well away from both congregation and clergy (there were 10 of the latter, three of whom executed 360° swings of the censer during the service. I suspect being able to do this is a qualification for admission to the Chapter.)
That afternoon I took a train out of the city to visit the Certosa di Pavia. The monastery church boasts some very impressive marquetry choir stalls. I’m sure this building would be a good place to record (though I don’t know what the organ is like) with a resonant acoustic and isolated location away from external noise. But that probably wouldn’t suit the monastic routine and need for silence.