Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Part II: 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 reminiscent of, or resembling, secular music;
- the rejection of musical forms and elaborations tending to mutilate or obscure the liturgical text.
|
Back to Part I: Preparation for Reform