Palestrina

“ De Wert had gone to Italy as a boy, and you might be after blaming those soft Italian skies for his amorous troubles. But then you'll encounter such a life as that of Palestrina spent altogether in Italy. He married young. Her name was Lucrezia, and their life seems to have been one of ideal devotion. She bore him four sons, and stood by him in all his troubles, brightening the twilight of poverty, adorning that high noon of his glory, when the Pope himself turned to Palestrina, and implored him to reform and rescue the whole music of the Church from its corruptions. ”

“ The one son who outlived him seems to have been a sordid and heartless wretch in vivid contrast to the character of his father, whose compositions he recklessly scattered from mercenary motives. Yet the life of Palestrina must have had its moments of sunshine. Probably the most striking of these occurred in 1575, the jubilee year, when, as a compliment to their distinguished townsman, 1500 singers from the city of Palestrina entered Rome, divided into three companies, singing the works of the composer, while he, marching at the head of the vocal army, directed the musical proceedings. ”

“ In the suppression of individual emotion, in the banishment of rhythm and other active startling elements of music in order to produce the effect of vagueness and mystery, in the limitation of music to ecclesiastical modes, the Palestrina style is the flower of the spirit of the Middle Ages, of a spirit that in the lifetime of Palestrina himself was already dissipating in thin air. He stands looking backward upon the centuries which had given him birth, while on every hand the activities of man were urging impetuously forward. ”

“ In the history of music Palestrina represents the culmination of the polyphonic school of vocal music. He wrote no instrumental music, no music for a solo voice. He had not a touch of that revolutionary impulse which drives men upon new paths. He worked only with existing materials, but he brought music as he knew it to the highest conceivable point of perfection. As his powers developed he found the secret of the true balance between science and expression. In Palestrina we first find the melodious suavity which has since become typical of Italian music. ”

“ Therefore the holiest, purest, most ecclesiastical music must be that which flows from the soul as the uncontaminated expression of the love in question, disregarding, nay despising, all that is mundane. And such are Palestrina's simple, majestic compositions, which, conceived in the highest fervour of piety and love, proclaim the godlike with might and glory. To his music truly applies what the Italians apply to the writings of many composers who are shallow and miserable compared to him; it is, of a truth, 'music of another world'--musica dell' altro mondo. ”

“ There is probably no respectable school piece of the 16th century, which, if properly performed in a Roman Catholic church, would be quickly distinguishable by ear from the style of Palestrina. But when we find that every addition to our acquaintance with Palestrina's works is an acquisition, not to our notions of the progressive possibilities of 16th-century music, but to our whole sense of style, we may then recognize that we are in the presence of one of the greatest artists of all time. ”

“ Praeneste was the native town of Aelian, and in modern times of the great composer (Giovanni) Pierluigi da Palestrina.
The modern town of Palestrina, a collection of narrow and filthy alleys, stands on the terraces once occupied by the temple of Fortune. On the summit of the hill (2471 ft.) , nearly a mile from the town, stood the ancient citadel, the site of which is now occupied by a few poor houses (Castel San Pietro) and a ruined medieval castle of the Colonna. The magnificent view embraces Soracte, Rome, the Alban Hills and the Campagna as far as the sea. ”

“ Palestrina, a little way off on the hillside, with a flowing skirt of vines all about it, breathes laughter in its very air. One may sit in Bernardini's—known to all visitors to the city of Fortune—and hear the travellers who come there laugh over mishaps which they would have growled over anywhere else. The comparison might be made of many other towns.
Asisi is set in a world of olives. They swing like smoke from a censer all through the corn and grain of the plain; they roll up the hills and mountains, climbing the almost perpendicular heights like goats; they crawl through the ravines ”

“ The man whom all posterity knows by the name of his birthplace, as Palestrina, was the greatest composer the Catholic Church ever had. He was a younger contemporary of Willaert's, but was born an Italian. And all his glory belongs to Italy. Of his youth nothing is known. He first appears as the organist and director at the chief church in Palestrina from 1544 to 1551.
Of his early love-making nothing is known; it is only certain that he married young, and it would seem very happily. Yet this marriage brought him the greatest shock of his life. ”

“ If Palestrina is superior to Vittoria, as Beethoven is to Schubert, yet as Schubert has many points of excellence which form a fitting complement to those of Beethoven, so Vittoria has certain points of excellence more characteristic and more valuable than those of Anerio and Soriano, which mark him out as the fitting complement to Palestrina. If Vittoria has not the science, the variety, the boldness, the perfect originality of Palestrina, yet in him depth of feeling comes to more direct and immediate expression. ”

“ Among these was undoubtedly Palestrina, and he was dismissed accordingly. The Pope tempered his severity by assigning to each of the dismissed singers a pension, but not the less did his expulsion seem ruin to the anxious and oversensitive Palestrina. He straightway took to his bed, and for some weeks lay prostrate under an attack of nervous fever. As might have been foreseen, his despair was premature. A young man who had so speedily and so surely left his mark upon the music of his generation was not likely to starve for want of employment. ”

“ Externally, Palestrina's life was a very uneventful one, and the records collected with indefatigable diligence by his biographer have only brought to light changes from one post to another in several Basilicas, and unceasing industry in composition. The vast number of works published by Palestrina in his lifetime, or left in MS. at his death, or known to have been written and now lost, would be truly astonishing were it not a fact that very eminent creative genius is always copious, and in no province of the arts more fertile than in that of music. Palestrina lived and died a poor man. ”

“ I tried to explain to Father Gordon that Palestrina was one of the greatest of musicians, but he never understood. Monsignor Mostyn and I understood each other at once. I said Palestrina, he said Vittoria—I don't know which suggested the immense advantage that a revival of the true music of the Catholic would be in making converts to Rome. You don't like Ulick's music; there's nothing more to be said. ”

“ Both were rich in genius—the northerner more emotional, more sensuous in harmony, more dramatic, the southerner more calm and serene in the beauty of his work. Palestrina seems to [Pg 321] have stood apart, untouched both by the swarming intellectual novelties of the time, and by the revolutionary spirit within the church. Great of intellect indeed he must have been, for he conquered a vast field of learning, and reached a point where his art was objective, universal, and perfect according to its type. ”

“ This composition by Palestrina, as well as very many others, not only displays a complete mastery of counterpoint and vocal style, but also deep religious feeling and a rare ability in writing for the human voice. The sterling value of his works cannot be overestimated. Their influence upon later periods has been immeasurable. Indeed, we may say without exaggeration, that never in art has such a mighty change taken place as that caused by the immortal Palestrina's reformatory efforts. ”

“ If we find it convenient to divide Palestrina's work roughly into three types, we shall be able to take the Missa Papae Marcelli as the crowning representative of his second style. It probably is his greatest work; at all events it continues to make that impression whenever it is read after a long course of his other works; yet there are many masses, too numerous to mention, which cannot easily be considered inferior to it. ”

“ Another successful terrace plan inspired by Palestrina is Valadier’s treatment in the 19th century of the steep slope up the Pincio from the Piazza del Popolo in Rome.
Palestrina inspired the architects of the Roman Empire, too: for example—one among many—it influenced to some extent (see also p. 267) the architect of Trajan’s Market in Rome, who uses terracing, concrete, and framed arches (but the arches are flat, the framing is pilasters instead of half-columns, and the façade is brick instead of opus incertum.) ”

“ On the contrary, the Palestrina tradition was the one thing which gave 17th-century composers a practical basis for their technical training. Only in the 18th century did the new art, before coming to maturity under Bach and Handel, reduce the Palestrina style to a dead language.
In the middle of the 19th century that dead language revived in a renascence which has steadily spread throughout Europe. The Musica divina of Canon K. Proske of Regensburg, begun in 1853, was perhaps the first decisive step towards the restoration of Roman Catholic church music. ”

“ Young Palestrina, living his simple, busy life in his home town, never dreamed he was destined to become a great musician. He married in 1548, when he was about twenty-two. If he had wished to secure one of the great musical appointments in Rome, it was a very unwise thing for him to marry, for single singers were preferred in nine cases out of ten. Palestrina did not seem to realize this danger to a brilliant career, and took his bride, Lucrezia, for pure love. She seems to have been a person after his own heart, besides having a comfortable dowry of her own. ”

“ The Fifth Epoch—extending from the year 1565, to the beginning of the following Century—witnessed the sudden advance of both branches of Art to absolute perfection: for Palestrina, the brightest genius of the age, was equally great in both, and has left us Motets as unapproachable in their beauty as the 'Missa Papæ Marcelli.' The prolific power of this delightful Composer was no less remarkable than the purity of his style. ”

“ In any extensive anthology of liturgical polyphony such as the Musica Divina of Proske, his work stands out as impressively as Palestrina’s and Lasso’s; and the style, in spite of a resemblance to Palestrina which amounts to imitation, is as individual as only a successful imitator of Palestrina can be. That is to say, Victoria’s individuality is strong enough to assert itself by the very act of following Palestrina’s path. When he is below his best his style does not become crabbed or harsh, but over-facile and thin, though never failing in euphony. ”

“ In examining the works of these two celebrated artists, one remarks the different qualities which they possess and which gives to them an individual physiognomy. The music of the former is graceful and elegant (for the time in which it was composed) ; but that of Palestrina has more force and seriousness. That of Lasso is more singable and shows greater imagination, but that of his rival is much more learned. In the motets and madrigals of Palestrina are effects of mass which are admirable; but the French songs of Lasso are full of most interesting details. ”

“ In an enumeration of the works of Palestrina, published during this period of his life, we must not forget to mention five secular madrigals of his which Vincenzo Galilei, father of the astronomer, and a musical virtuoso of no mean order, set for the lute, and included in a collection of similar compositions which he published under the title of 'Fronimo,' through Scoto of Venice, in 1568, and again in 1584. The secular works of Palestrina are so few in number that the names of the madrigals are worth preservation. ”

“ Since rhythm, dissonance, and sudden leaps or turns in melody are the chief means whereby music [Pg 322] can express emotional agitation, the Palestrina style was not even remotely suitable to the new and active spirit spread abroad through the influence of the Italian Renaissance, which had discovered new worlds, new arts, new sciences, new life. The delicate and infinitely complicated structure could not but be rent and distorted. ”

“ Parvi transcribed it, for the library of the choir, in characters of extraordinary size and beauty; and Palestrina was appointed by the pope composer to the Sistine Chapel, an office created expressly in his honour and confirmed to him by seven later pontiffs, though with the very insufficient honorarium of three scudi per month, in addition to the six which formed his pension. ”

“ Uncongenial as it was, Palestrina, with unwavering devotion to his art, and to the Church to which he had so absolutely devoted both himself and it, undertook the task. Well aware of its extent, he called to his aid his favorite pupil, Guidetti, and intrusted to him the correction of the "Antifonario." Guidetti carried this part of the work through under the supervision of his master, and it was published at Rome in 1582 under the title "Directorium Chori." The "Graduale," which Palestrina had reserved to himself, he never completed. There is a limit to the perseverance of the most persevering ”