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watch . . . a performance of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli online.
The Counter-Reformation and Palestrina (1525–1594)
On October 31, 1517, an obscure Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailed to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg, Germany, ninety-five complaints against the Roman Catholic Church—his famous ninety-five theses. With this defiant act Luther began what has come to be called the Protestant Reforma- tion. Luther and his fellow reformers sought to bring an end to corruption within the Roman Catholic Church, typified by the practice of selling indulgences (for- giving sin in exchange for money). By the time the Protestant Reformation had run its course, most of Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries, and all of England, as well as parts of France, Austria, Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary, had gone over to the Protestant cause. The established Roman Catholic Church was shaken to its very foundations.
In response to the Protestant Reformation, the leaders of the Church of Rome gathered in northern Italy to discuss their own reform in what proved to be a two-decades-long conference, the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Here be- gan the Counter Reformation, a conservative, sometimes austere, movement that changed not only religious practices, but also art, architecture, and music. With regard to music, the reformers of the Church of Rome were particularly alarmed by the incessant entry of voices in musical imitation; they feared that excessively dense counterpoint was burying the word of the Lord. As one well- placed bishop said mockingly:
Nowadays composers have put all their labor and effort into writing imitative passages, so that while one voice sings “Sanctus,” another says “Sabaoth,” and still another “Gloria tua,” with howling, bellowing, and stammering, so that they all together sound more like cats in January than flowers in May.
One important composer who got caught up in this debate about the ap- propriate style for church music was Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525– 1594; Figure 4.14). In 1555 Palestrina composed a Missa Papae Marcelli (Mass for Pope Marcellus) that conformed to all the requirements for proper church music prescribed by the Council of Trent. His poly- phonic Mass was devoid of a strong beat and “catchy” rhythms, and it privileged simple counterpoint over complex, imitative polyphony, all qualities that allowed the text to project with great clarity. Although the fathers of the Council of Trent had once considered banning all polyphony from the services of the Church, they now came to see that this somber, serene style of religious music could be a useful vehicle to inspire the faithful to greater devotion. For his role in securing a place for composed polyphony within the established Church, Palestrina came
to be called, perhaps with some exaggeration, the “savior of church music.”
Popular Music in the Renaissance
The motets and Masses of Josquin and Palestrina represent the “high” art of the Renaissance—learned music for the Church. But there was popular music as
FiguRE 4.14
Portrait of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the first important composer of the Church to have been a layman rather than a cleric in holy orders.
62 chapter four music in the middle ages and renaissance
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