Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Style
History
Jesuit musicians of the 17th century maintained this rumor, and it made its way into music history books into
the 19th century, when historian Giuseppe Baini, in his
1828 biography of Palestrina, couched him as the savThe third and closing sessions of the Council of Trent ior of polyphony from a council wishing to wipe it out
were held in 156263, at which the use of polyphonic mu- entirely:
sic in the Catholic Church was discussed. Concerns were
On Saturday, 28 April 1565, by order of
raised over two problems: rst, the use of music that was
Cardinal Vitellozzi, all the singers of the papal
objectionable, such as secular songs provided with relichapel were gathered together at his residence.
gious lyrics (contrafacta) or masses based on songs with
lyrics about drinking or lovemaking; and second, whether
Cardinal Borromeo was already there, together
imitation in polyphonic music obscured the words of the
with all the other six cardinals of the papal
mass, interfering with the listeners devotion. Some decommission. Palestrina was there as well...they
bate occurred over whether polyphony should be banned
sang three Masses, of which the Pope Marceloutright in worship, and some of the auxiliary publicalus Mass was the last...The greatest and most
1
5
incessant praise was given to the third, which
was extraordinarily acclaimed and, by virtue
of its entirely novel character, astonished even
the performers themselves. Their Eminences
heaped their congratulations on the composer,
recommending to him to go on writing in that
style and to communicate it to his pupils.
Quoted in Taruskin, Richard, and
Weiss, Piero. Music in the Western World:A
History in Documents. Schirmer, 1984, p. 142.
An entry in the papal chapel diaries conrms that a meeting such as the one described by Baini occurred, but no
mention is made of whether the Missa Papae Marcelli
was performed there or what the reaction of the audience
was.[2] This legend persisted into the 20th century; Hans
Ptzner's opera Palestrina is based upon this understanding of the deliberations of the Tridentine ocials. While
Palestrina sympathized with many of the Councils decisions, and, like Vincenzo Ruo, sought deliberately to
compose in a simplied, easily understood style to please
church ocials, there is no evidence to support either the
view that the Council sought to banish polyphony entirely
or that Palestrinas mass was the deciding factor in changing their minds.
EXTERNAL LINKS
4 References
[1] Taruskin, Richard. Music from the Earliest Notations to the
Sixteenth Century. The Oxford History of Western Music,
Volume 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. pp.
653663 ISBN 978-0-19-538481-9
In the latter part of the 20th century, the Missa Papae Marcelli has been recorded frequently, and is often
used as a model for the study of stile antico Renaissance
polyphony in university courses on music.
[2] Lockwood, Lewis, et al. Palestrina. Grove Music Online, 2001 (subscription required).
[4] Monson, Craig. The Council of Trent Revisited. Journal of the American Musicological Society 55 (2002), pp.
137.
Analysis
[5] Godt, Irving. A New Look at Palestrinas Missa Papae Marcelli". College Music Symposium 23 (1) (Spring,
1983), pp. 2249. (subscription required)
5 External links
6.1
Text
6.2
Images
6.3
Content license