United States or Hong Kong ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Several of his compositions, written at this time, are still performed in Rome on Good Friday, and Goethe and Mendelssohn have left their eloquent tributes to the impression made on them by music alike simple and sublime. The pope was highly pleased with Palestrina's noble music, and appointed him one of the papal choristers, then regarded as a great honor.
Feeling more sure of himself, Palestrina continued to compose masses, until he had created ninety-three in all. He also wrote many motets on the Song of Solomon, his Stabat Mater, which was edited two hundred and fifty years later by Richard Wagner, and his lamentations, which were composed at the request of Sixtus V. Palestrina's end came February 2, 1594.
But Palestrina resigned his post as maestro at Saint Peter's and entered the chapel. The Pope died shortly afterward and was succeeded by a cardinal who was a patron of Palestrina's and continued his favour as Pope Marcellus II. Three weeks later this Pope also died, and was followed by Paul IV.
The madrigal opera was intrinsically operatic, but it was not yet freed from the restrictions of impersonality from which its parent, the polyphony of the church, could not logically rid itself even with the aid of a Palestrina's genius. We must then follow this line of later development. The Predominance of the Spectacular
He was soon welcomed into the literary and artistic circles of Paris; and one evening, at an elegant réunion, being invited to play, he improvised a piece, which was taken for a composition of Palestrina's. Many were moved to tears, one pair of pre-eminently bright eyes especially; and the consequence was, that the composer and the bright eyes were soon after united in marriage!
The latter part of the gospel is sung in the usual chant by the deacon, but without the customary lights . At the offertory is sung the first part of the beautiful hymn Stabat Mater: the music is Palestrina's, and is justly and highly panegyrised by Baini; it has been published by Dr. Burney.
But we have the main facts, and know that Palestrina's name will be revered for all time as the man who strove to make sacred music the expression of lofty and spiritual meaning. Upon a hoary spur of the Apennines stands the crumbling town of Palestrina. It is very old now; it was old when Rome was young.
But the dance tunes of the time, on which, perhaps, erudition was not used sufficiently, were written in the same polyphonic style and with the same rigid correctness as the madrigals and the church music. We know that the popular songs found their way into the church music and that Palestrina's great reform consisted in banishing them.
The scandal of La Messe de l'Homme armé was entirely theoretical. We simply do not know how they played these anthems, masses, and madrigals, in the absence of any indication of either the time or the emphasis. We find a few directions for expression, as in the first measures of Palestrina's Stabat Mater but such directions are extremely rare.
A certain writer Pitoni, by a bit of careless reading, multiplied Palestrina's wives by two, and divided his sons by the same number, claiming that Lucrezia, the first wife of Palestrina, was the mother of Angelo, that after her death he married one Doralice, and that she was the mother of Igino.
Word Of The Day