Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
The greatest composer of liturgical music of all time,
born at Palestrina (ancient Praeneste) in 1514 or 1515,
according to Baini, Riemann, and others, according to
Haberl, in 1526; died at Rome, 2 February, 1594. His
early history is practically unknown. Giusseppi Ottavia
Pittoni (1657-1743), in "notizie dei maestri di
cappella si di Rome che altramontani", 1600-1700", a
manuscript in the Vatican, relates that young Pierluigi
sang in the streets of Rome while offering for sale the
products of his parents farm and that he was heard on
such an occasion by the choirmaster of Santa Maria
Maggiore, who, impressed by the boy's beautiful voice
and pronounced musical talent, educated him musically.
As to the identity of the choirmaster, tradition gives
no clue. Some hold that Palestrina was taught by
Jacques Arcadelt (1514-60), choirmaster and composer in
Rome from 1539 to 1549. The opinion, so long held, that
Claude Goudimel (1505-72) was his principal teacher has
now been definitively abandoned. As far as is known, he
began his active musical life as organist and
choirmaster in his native city in 1544; his reputation
increasing, in 1551 he was called to Rome, entrusted
with the direction and musical formation of the
choirboys at St. Peter's, and within the same year was
advanced to the post of choirmaster. In 1554, he
dedicated to Julius III (1549-55) his first
compositions, a volume of masses for four voices, and
was rewarded with the appointment as a member of the
papal chapel in contravention of the rules governing
that body. The popehad set aside the rule requiring
those who held membership in the papal choir to be in
Holy Orders, and also used his authority to exempt him
from the usually severe entrance examination. These
circumstances and the further fact that his voice was
much inferior to those of the other singers, aroused
the opposition, and antagonism of his fellow-members.
The papal singers did not appreciate the object of the
pope, which was to secure for the gifted young man the
necessary leisure to compose.
In the course of the same year, Palestrina published a
volume of madrigals. The texts of some of these the
composer himself in later years considered too free. In
the dedication of his setting of the Canticle of
Canticles to Gregory XIII, he expresses not only regret
but repentance, for having caused scandal by this
publication. Marcellus II, as cardinal, had protected
and admired Palestrina, but died after a reign of only
twenty-one days. Paul IV, shortly after his accession,
re-inforced the former rules for the government of the
papal choir. Besides Palestrina, there were two other
lay married members in the choir. All were dismissed
with a small pension, in spite of the understanding
that these singers were engaged for life. The worry and
hardship caused by the dismissal brought on a severe
illness; restored, the composer took charge, 1 October,
1555, of the choir at St. John Lateran, where he
remained until February, 1561. During this period he
wrote, beside Lamentations and Magnificats, the famous
"Improperia". Their performance by the papal choir on
Good Friday was ordered by Paul IV, and they have
remained in its repertoire for Holy Week ever since.
This production greatly increased Palestrina's fame. In
1561 he asked the chapter of St. John Lateran for an
increase in salary, in view of his growing needs and
the expense of publishing his works. Refused, he
accepted a similar post at Santa Maria Maggiore, which
he held until 1571. It is not know at what period of
his career Palestrina came under the influence of St..
Philip Neri, but there is every reason to believe it
was in early youth. As the saint's penitent and
spiritual disciple, he gained that insight into the
spirit of the liturgy, which enabled his to set it
forth in polyphonic music as it had never before been
done. It was his spiritual formation even more than his
artistic maturity, which fitted him for the
providential part he played in 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 of reminiscent of, or
resembling, secular music;
* the rejection of musical forms and elaborations
tending to mutilate or obscure the liturgical text.
Pius IV created for Palestrina the office of "Composer
of the Papal Chapel" with an increased salary. In this
office he had only one successor, Felice Anerio. When
in 1571 Giovanni Annimuccia, choirmaster at St..
Peter's, died, Palestrina became his successor, thus
being connected with the papal choir and St. Peter's at
the same time. An attempt of his jealous and intriguing
colleagues in the papal chapel to have him dismissed by
Pius V was unsuccessful. During this year he wrote a
number of motets and laudi spirituali for the Oratory
of St. Philip Neri. Besides the duties of choirmaster
at St. Peter's, composer to the papal chapel, director
of music at St. Philip's Oratory, he also taught at the
school of music of Giovanni Maria Nanini. In addition,
Gregory XIII commissioned him to prepare a new version
of the Gregorian chant. His exact share in this
edition, afterwards published under the name of "editio
Medicaea" because printed in a press belonging to
Cardinal de' Medici, and what was prepared by his pupil
Giovanni Guidetti, Felice Anerio, and Francesco
Suriano, has long been a matter of controversy. The
undertaking was not particularly congenial to
Palestrina and kept him from original production, his
real field of activity. His wife's death in 1580
affected him profoundly. His sorrow found expression in
two compositions, Psalm 136, "By the waters of
Babylon", and a motet on the words "O Lord, when Thou
shalt come to judge the world, how shall I stand before
the face of Thy anger, my sins frighten me, woe to me,
O Lord". With these he intended to close his creative
activity, but with the appointment in 1581 as director
of music to Prince Buoncompagni, nephew of Gregory
XIII, he began perhaps the most brilliant period of his
long life.
Besides sacred madrigals, motets, psalms, hymns in
honour of the Blessed Virgin, and Masses, he produced
the work which brought him the title of "Prince of
Music", twenty-nine motets on the words from the
"Canticle of Canticles". According to his own
statement, Palestrina intended to reproduce in his
composition the Divine love expressed in the Canticle,
so that his own heart might be touched by a spark
thereof. For the enthronement of Sixtus V, he wrote a
five-part motet and mass on the theme to the text "Tu
es pastor ovium', followed a few months later by one of
his greatest productions, the mass "Assumpta est
Maria". Sixtus had intended to appoint him director of
the papal choir, but the refusal of the singers to be
directed by a layman, prevented the execution of his
plan. During the last years of his life Palestrina
wrote his great "Lamentations", settings of the
liturgical hymns, a collection of motets, the well-know
"Stabat Mater" for double chorus, litanies in honour of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the offertories for the
ecclesiastical year. His complete works, in thirty-
three volumes, edited by Theodore deWitt, Franz
Espagne, Franz Commer, and from the tenth volume on, by
Haberl, are published by Breitkopf and Hartel; Msgr.
Haberl presented the last volume of the completed
edition to Pius X on Easter Monday, 1908. Palestrina's
significance lies not so much in his unprecedented
gifts of mind and heart, his creative and constructive
powers, as in the fact that he made them the medium for
the expression in tones of the state of his own soul,
which, trained and formed by St. Philip, was attuned to
and felt with the Church. His creations will for all
time stand forth as the musical embodiment of the
spirit of the counter-reformation, the triumphant
Church.
JOSEPH OTTEN
Transcribed by Jim Holden
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright �
1996 by New Advent, Inc., P.O. Box 281096, Denver,
Colorado, USA, 80228. (
[email protected])
Taken from the New Advent Web Page
(www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia
Project, an effort aimed at placing the entire
Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 edition on the World Wide
Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight, editor of the
New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this worthwhile project, you can contact
him by e-mail at (knight.org/advent). For more
information please download the file cathen.txt/.zip.
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