Kyrie from Pope Marcellus

In some ways, what Caccini achieved in revolutionizing secular music, Giovanni Palestrina is credited with doing for sacred music. Both men were seeking to refine inherited forms that had grown overly intricate, erudite, and pedantic. Caccini’s urgency stemmed from the Camerata’s resurrection of ancient Greek views on music’s affective power. For Palestrina the impetus was perhaps more pressing. Legend says that the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Catholic Church’s main counter-reformation effort, was poised to ban polyphonic music entirely until Palestrina composed a beautiful choral mass that showed an acceptable way forward. That work, the Pope Marcellus Mass, remains a cornerstone of 16th-century sacred music. But that it was written to appease the Council is total fiction. For his own reasons, Palestrina had already settled on a leaner, more text-based style before the Council even convened.
Of course, as news of the Council’s feelings about music emerged, Palestrina was perfectly positioned to take advantage. In 1551 he took his first job in Rome at St. Peter’s. All of his remaining life was spent in the Eternal City and involved several of the most significant church positions. As the first native talent to compose such brilliant masses, Palestrina’s reputation flourished during his lifetime, particularly among advocates of his conservative, text-friendly aesthetic. Crystallized in the Kyrie of the Pope Marcellus Mass, Palestrina’s new direction pays great attention to cadences, which provide resting points for listeners. Cadences at keywords also reinforce the spiritual message and break up the entire narrative like scenes in a play or film. Coupled with moments of lock-step homophony (all voices moving in similar rhythms), Palestrina allows occasional moments to shine through a texture that is sublime in its clarity.

(c) Jason Stell