Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi Da (1526–1594)

PALESTRINA, GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA (1526–1594)

PALESTRINA, GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA (1526–1594), Italian composer. Giovanni Palestrina was one of the most important composers of vocal music in sixteenth-century Italy. His name was synonymous with the Roman polyphonic style of composition that came to embody the musical goals and aesthetic ideals of the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent. The Palestrina style (stile del Palestrina) is characterized by a perfect sense of balance and equilibrium, a seamless marriage between intelligible text setting and rich vocal sonorities. Stress and accent follow the natural rhythms of the words, melodic motion and dissonance are carefully controlled, and his harmonic language is one of the finest expressions of the socalled old church modal system that would soon be superseded by modern tonality. As the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) serves as the model for the study of tonal counterpoint, the rules of counterpoint that have been gleaned from Palestrina's music have been used to teach modal counterpoint to the present day.

Although the name by which he is known comes from the town of his birth (Palestrina, near Rome), he almost always signed letters with his given name "Giovanni Petraloysio." His birthdate cannot be definitively documented, but since the eulogy written at the time of his death in 1594 gives his age as sixty-eight, it can be safely ascribed to 1526.

Palestrina's first appointment was as organist of San Agapito in his hometown, on 28 October 1544. On 1 September 1551 he became magister cantorum (leader of the boy choir school) of the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's in Rome, and he assumed the position of magister cappellae (leader of the chapel) in 1553. A year later he published the first book of polyphonic masses ever printed in Rome.

Palestrina was hired by the Sistine Chapel on 13 January 1555, but shortly thereafter the new pope, Paul IV, decided to reinstate the rule of celibacy for anyone working there, and Palestrina and two other married singers were forced to leave. On 1 October 1555 we find Palestrina as maestro di cappella of San Giovanni in Laterano, but he resigned in 1560. He then returned to the place of his early training, San Maria Maggiori, and subsequently became director of the Seminario Romano.

During this period, the musical policies resulting from the Council of Trent—in particular the removal of "impure" or secular elements from the liturgy and the emphasis on intelligibility—proved to be both a challenge and a stimulus to Palestrina and his contemporaries. Palestrina's reputation as the savior of polyphonic church music is likely somewhat exaggerated; nonetheless, at least some of his compositions (perhaps the famous Missa Papae Marcelli or Pope Marcellus Mass ) were performed for Cardinal Vitellozzi, one of the overseers of the reform, to see if the words could be easily understood. His music was also frequently sung in the papal chapel.

Palestina's reputation was such that Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II invited him to act as imperial choirmaster in Vienna in 1568, but he declined the offer. Palestrina returned to the Capella Giulia as choirmaster in April 1571 and remained there until his death. This was a time of personal upheaval for the composer; in addition to losing his two sons and a brother to the plague, his wife Lucrezia died in 1580, although he married Virginia Dormoli, the wealthy widow of a furrier, a year later. Nonetheless, the reign of Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585) was particularly rich for the production of sacred music. In 1577–1578, Palestrina became deeply involved in the revision of the plainsong repertoire from the Roman Gradual and Antiphoner, a project that he never completed. Palestrina also assumed an active role in his new wife's businesses, successfully investing in real estate and even selling altar wine out of his family vineyard.

Palestrina was among the most prolific composers of his age. His more than 300 motets, 140 madrigals, 104 masses, 72 hymns, 68 offertories, and 35 Magnificats far surpassed the output of his contemporaries. His followers included such masters as Tomás Luis de Victoria and Annibale Stabile, and his preeminence was well recognized during his lifetime. An anthology of vesper psalms composed by six notable composers was dedicated to him in 1592, complete with an effusive testimonial about his accomplishments. His compositions were often reprinted during his lifetime, and he was the first composer of the sixteenth century to appear in a complete nineteenth-century edition.

Palestrina remained in memory far more prominently and persistently than any of his contemporaries. His compositions became a permanent part of the repertoire of the Sistine Chapel, a most unusual practice at that time. His carefully wrought counterpoint became identified with stile antico (old style)—as opposed to the stile modern (modern style)—that came to be associated with notions of purity and spirituality. By the eighteenth century, Palestrina's reputation was based less on a detailed familiarity with his music than his mastery of counterpoint. The preface to Johann Joseph Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), the most important eighteenth-century treatise on Renaissance counterpoint, exemplifies the awe and devotion that Palestrina's music inspired. Palestrina, the master of counterpoint, is "the celebrated light of music . . . to whom I owe everything I know of this art, and whose memory I shall never cease to cherish with feelings of deepest reverence" (Fux, The Steps to Parnassus, p. 16).

See also Music ; Reformation, Catholic ; Victoria, Tomás Luis de .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Fux, Johann Joseph. Steps to Parnassus: The Study of Counterpoint. Translated and edited by Alfred Mann with John St. Edmonds. New York, 1943. Translation of Gradus ad Parnassum. Vienna, 1725.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Pope Marcellus Mass. Norton Critical Score. Edited by Lewis Lockwood with introduction. New York, 1975. Authoritative edition of one of Palestrina's most celebrated masses, with informative introduction to the composer and works.

Secondary Sources

Boyd, Malcolm. Palestrina's Style. London, 1973.

O'Regan, Noel. Institutional Patronage in Post-Tridentine Rome: Music at SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, 1559–1650. London, 1995.

——. "Palestrina, A Musician and Composer in the Market-Place." Early Music 22 (1994): 551–572.

Owens, Jessie Ann. Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition, 1450–1600. New York, 1997. Fascinating description of the working methods of Renaissance composers, including a discussion of Palestrina's letters and manuscripts.

Wendy Heller, Mark Kroll