FREE ESSAY ON PALESTRINA

PALESTRINA

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
The greatest composer of liturgical music of all time, born at Palestrina (ancient
Praeneste) in 1514 or 1515, according to Baini, Riemann, and others, according to Haberl,
in 1526; died at Rome, 2 February, 1594. His early history is practically unknown.
Giusseppi Ottavia Pittoni (1657-1743), in notizie dei maestri di cappella si di Rome che
altramontani, 1600-1700, a manuscript in the Vatican, relates that young Pierluigi sang
in the streets of Rome while offering for sale the products of his parents farm and that
he was heard on such an occasion by the choirmaster of Santa Maria Maggiore, who,
impressed by the boy's beautiful voice and pronounced musical talent, educated him
musically. As to the identity of the choirmaster, tradition gives no clue. Some hold that
Palestrina was taught by Jacques Arcadelt (1514-60), choirmaster and composer in Rome
from 1539 to 1549. The opinion, so long held, that Claude Goudimel (1505-72) was his
principal teacher has now been definitively abandoned. As far as is known, he began his
active musical life as organist and choirmaster in his native city in 1544; his
reputation increasing, in 1551 he was called to Rome, entrusted with the direction and
musical formation of the choirboys at St. Peter's, and within the same year was advanced
to the post of choirmaster. In 1554, he dedicated to Julius III (1549-55) his first
compositions, a volume of masses for four voices, and was rewarded with the appointment
as a member of the papal chapel in contravention of the rules governing that body. The
pope had set aside the rule requiring those who held membership in the papal choir to be
in Holy Orders, and also used his authority to exempt him from the usually severe
entrance examination. These circumstances and the further fact that his voice was much
inferior to those of the other singers, aroused the opposition, and antagonism of his
fellow-members. The papal singers did not appreciate the object of the pope, which was to
secure for the gifted young man the necessary leisure to compose. 
In the course of the same year, Palestrina published a volume of madrigals. The texts of
some of these the composer himself in later years considered too free. In the dedication
of his setting of the Canticle of Canticles to Gregory XIII, he expresses not only regret
but repentance, for having caused scandal by this publication. Marcellus II, as cardinal,
had protected and admired Palestrina, but died after a reign of only twenty-one days.
Paul IV, shortly after his accession, re-inforced the former rules for the government of
the papal choir. Besides Palestrina, there were two other lay married members in the
choir. All were dismissed with a small pension, in spite of the understanding that these
singers were engaged for life. 
The worry and hardship caused by the dismissal brought on a severe illness; restored, the
composer took charge, 1 October, 1555, of the choir at St. John Lateran, where he
remained until February, 1561. During this period he wrote, beside Lamentations and
Magnificats, the famous Improperia. Their performance by the papal choir on Good Friday
was ordered by Paul IV, and they have remained in its repertoire for Holy Week ever
since. This production greatly increased Palestrina's fame. In 1561 he asked the chapter
of St. John Lateran for an increase in salary, in view of his growing needs and the
expense of publishing his works. Refused, he accepted a similar post at Santa Maria
Maggiore, which he held until 1571. It is not know at what period of his career
Palestrina came under the influence of St. Philip Neri, but there is every reason to
believe it was in early youth. As the saint's penitent and spiritual disciple, he gained
that insight into the spirit of the liturgy, which enabled his to set it forth in
polyphonic music as it had never before been done. It was his spiritual formation even
more than his artistic maturity, which fitted him for the providential part he played in
the reform of church music. 
The task of hastening the reforms decreed by the Council of Trent was entrusted by Pius
IV to a commission of eight cardinals. A committee of two of these, St. Charles Borromeo
and Vitellozo Vitelli, was appointed to consider certain improvement in the discipline
and administration of the papal choir, and to this end they associated to themselves
eight of the choir members. Cardinal Vitelli caused the singers to perform certain
compositions in his presence, in order to determine what measures could be taken for the
preservation of the integrity and distinct declamation of the text in compositions in
which the voices were interwoven. St. Charles, as chancellor of his uncle, Pius IV, was
the patron of Palestrina, increasing his pension in 1565. He celebrated a solemn Mass in
presence of the pontiff on 19 June, 1565, at which Palestrina's great Missa Papae
Marcelli was sung. These historical data are the only discoverable basis for the legends,
so long repeated by historians, concerning the trial before the cardinals and pope of the
cause of polyphonic music, and its vindication by Palestrina, in the composition and
performance of three masses, the Missa Papae Marcelli among them. Haberl's studies of the
archives conclusively demolished these fictions, but their continued repetition for
nearly two hundred years emphasizes the fact of Palestrina's activity, inspired by St.
Philip and encouraged by St. Charles, in the reform of church music, an activity which
embraced his entire career and antedated by some years the disciplinary measures of the
Church authorities. 
The foundation of his reform is the two principles legitimately deduced from the only
references to church music in the Tridentine decrees: 
the elimination of all themes of reminiscent of, or resembling, secular music; 
the rejection of musical forms and elaborations tending to mutilate or obscure the
liturgical text.
Pius IV created for Palestrina the office of Composer of the Papal Chapel with an
increased salary. In this office he had only one successor, Felice Anerio. When in 1571
Giovanni Annimuccia, choirmaster at St. Peter's, died, Palestrina became his successor,
thus being connected with the papal choir and St. Peter's at the same time. An attempt of
his jealous and intriguing colleagues in the papal chapel to have him dismissed by Pius V
was unsuccessful. During this year he wrote a number of motets and laudi spirituali for
the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Besides the duties of choirmaster at St. Peter's,
composer to the papal chapel, director of music at St. Philip's Oratory, he also taught
at the school of music of Giovanni Maria Nanini. In addition, Gregory XIII commissioned
him to prepare a new version of the Gregorian chant. His exact share in this edition,
afterwards published under the name of editio Medicaea because printed in a press
belonging to Cardinal de' Medici, and what was prepared by his pupil Giovanni Guidetti,
Felice Anerio, and Francesco Suriano, has long been a matter of controversy. The
undertaking was not particularly congenial to Palestrina and kept him from original
production, his real field of activity. His wife's death in 1580 affected him profoundly.
His sorrow found expression in two compositions, Psalm 136, By the waters of Babylon, and
a motet on the words O Lord, when Thou shalt come to judge the world, how shall I stand
before the face of Thy anger, my sins frighten me, woe to me, O Lord. With these he
intended to close his creative activity, but with the appointment in 1581 as director of
music to Prince Buoncompagni, nephew of Gregory XIII, he began perhaps the most brilliant
period of his long life. 
Besides sacred madrigals, motets, psalms, hymns in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and
Masses, he produced the work which brought him the title of Prince of Music, twenty-nine
motets on the words from the Canticle of Canticles. According to his own statement,
Palestrina intended to reproduce in his composition the Divine love expressed in the
Canticle, so that his own heart might be touched by a spark thereof. For the enthronement
of Sixtus V, he wrote a five-part motet and mass on the theme to the text Tu es pastor
ovium, followed a few months later by one of his greatest productions, the mass Assumpta
est Maria. Sixtus had intended to appoint him director of the papal choir, but the
refusal of the singers to be directed by a layman, prevented the execution of his plan.
During the last years of his life Palestrina wrote his great Lamentations, settings of
the liturgical hymns, a collection of motets, the well-know Stabat Mater for double
chorus, litanies in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the offertories for the
ecclesiastical year. His complete works, in thirty-three volumes, edited by Theodore
deWitt, Franz Espagne, Franz Commer, and from the tenth volume on, by Haberl, are
published by Breitkopf and Hartel; Msgr. Haberl presented the last volume of the
completed edition to Pius X on Easter Monday, 1908. Palestrina's significance lies not so
much in his unprecedented gifts of mind and heart, his creative and constructive powers,
as in the fact that he made them the medium for the expression in tones of the state of
his own soul, which, trained and formed by St. Philip, was attuned to and felt with the
Church. His creations will for all time stand forth as the musical embodiment of the
spirit of the counter-reformation, the triumphant Church.