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Missa Papae Marcelli

Missa Papae Marcelli, or Pope Marcellus Mass, is a


mass by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It is his most
well-known and most often-performed mass, and is frequently taught in university courses on music. It was always sung at the Papal Coronation Mass (the last being
the coronation of Paul VI in 1963).

tions by attendants of the Council caution against both of


these problems. However, none of the ocial proclamations from the Council mentions polyphonic music, excepting one injunction against the use of music that is, in
the words of the Council, lascivious or impure.[4]
Starting in the late 16th century, a legend began that the
second of these points, the threat that polyphony might
have been banned by the Council because of the unintelligibility of the words, was the impetus behind Palestrinas
composition of this mass. It was believed that the simple, declamatory style of Missa Papae Marcelli convinced
Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, on hearing, that polyphony
could be intelligible, and that music such as Palestrinas
was all too beautiful to ban from the Church. In 1607,
the composer Agostino Agazzari wrote:

Style

The Missa Papae Marcelli consists, like most Renaissance


masses, of a Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus/Benedictus,
and Agnus Dei, though the third part of the Agnus Dei
is a separate movement (designated Agnus II).[1] The
mass is freely composed, not based upon a cantus rmus or parody. Perhaps because of this, the mass is not
as thematically consistent as Palestrinas masses based
on models.[2] It is primarily a six-voice mass, but voice
combinations are varied throughout the piece; Palestrina
scores Agnus II for seven voices, and the use of the full
forces is reserved for specic climactic portions in the
text. It is set primarily in a homorhythmic, declamatory
style, with little overlapping of text and a general preference for block chords such that the text can clearly be
heard in performance, unlike many polyphonic masses of
the 16th century. As in much of Palestrinas contrapuntal
work, voices move primarily in stepwise motion, and the
voice leading strictly follows the rules of the diatonic
modes codied by theorist Gioseo Zarlino.[3]

Music of the older kind is no longer in use,


both because of the confusion and babel of the
words, arising from the long and intricate imitations, and because it has no grace, for with all
the voices singing, one hears neither period nor
sense, these being interfered with and covered
up by imitations...And on this account music
would have come very near to being banished
from the Holy Church by a sovereign ponti
[Pius IV], had not Giovanni Palestrina founded
the remedy, showing that the fault and error lay,
not with the music, but with the composers,
and composing in conrmation of this the Mass
entitled Missa Papae Marcelli.
Quoted in Taruskin, Richard, and
Weiss, Piero. Music in the Western World:A
History in Documents. Schirmer, 1984, p. 141.

History

The mass was composed in honor of Pope Marcellus II,


who reigned for three weeks in 1555. Recent scholarship suggests the most likely date of composition is 1562,
when it was copied into a manuscript at the Basilica di
Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.[2]

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

declaimed homorhythmically by a portion of the choir ...


and rounded o by a beautifully crafted cadence. The
words are clearly distinguishable, since melodic decoration is conned to the longest syllables. A dierent selection of voices is used for each such phrase.[1]
The Sanctus begins with very short phrases cadencing on
C. Longer phrases then cadence on F, D and G before the
music returns to C with conclusive eect. This was a new
technique, using tonal planning to replace imitation as
the means to keep the music moving forward.[1]
The Agnus Dei returns to the imitative polyphony of the
Kyrie (the opening of Agnus Dei I repeats that of the
Kyrie). As was frequently done in the 16th century,
Palestrina adds an extra voice in Agnus Dei II, making
seven for this movement, in which is embedded a threepart canon that begins with the head-motive.[1]

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

[3] Burkholder, J. Peter, Grout, Donald J., and Palisca,


Claude. A History of Western Music. Norton, 2006, p.
220.

[5] Godt, Irving. A New Look at Palestrinas Missa Papae Marcelli". College Music Symposium 23 (1) (Spring,
1983), pp. 2249. (subscription required)

Head-motif of Missa Papae Marcelli at rst occurrence in the


Kyrie

Missa Papae Marcelli does not (as far as is known) make


use of any pre-existing theme. The motif of a rising
perfect fourth and stepwise return (illustrated) is used extensively throughout this mass.[1] It is similar in prole to
the opening of the French secular song "L'homme arm",
which provided the theme for many Renaissance masses.
But this is probably a coincidence, as themes with this
prole were common in the 16th century, and Palestrina
himself used them in several other masses.[5]
The Kyrie consists of imitative polyphony in Palestrinas
earlier style, based on the main motif. It is in the middle movements that Palestrina applies the simpler style
needed after the Council of Trent. Richard Taruskin describes the Credo as a strategically planned series of cadential 'cells ... each expressed through a fragment of text

5 External links

Free scores of Missa Papae Marcelli in the Choral


Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
Missa Papae Marcelli Public Domain Recording

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

Text

Missa Papae Marcelli Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa%20Papae%20Marcelli?oldid=634721305 Contributors: MistToys,


Graham87, MZMcBride, Str1977, SmackBot, Hmains, Andy M. Wang, Chris the speller, Makemi, Er Komandante, Rigadoun, Capmo,
Laurienne Bell, DavidRF, Massimo Macconi, Chubbles, Antique Rose, Ed!, David Eppstein, MartinBot, CommonsDelinker, Reedy Bot,
Jajafe, Flyer22, Stfg, Witchwooder, MystBot, Addbot, Jwillis89, Aytrus, Jfmantis, Anirudh Emani, ZroBot, ClueBot NG and Anonymous:
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6.2

Images

File:Papae_Marcelli_Motif.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Papae_Marcelli_Motif.png License:


CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Stfg

6.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

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