Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526 – 2 February 1594) was an Italian composer of late Renaissance music. The central representative of the Roman School, with Orlande de Lassus and Tomás Luis de Victoria, Palestrina is considered the leading composer of late 16th-century Europe. Palestrina was one of the few Renaissance composers never entirely forgotten, but it was the so-called "Palestrinian style" of counterpoint—especially as codified by Johann Joseph Fux—rather than his individual compositions that exerted the greatest influence.
Born in the town of Palestrina in the Papal States, Palestrina moved to Rome as a child and underwent musical studies there. In 1551, Pope Julius III appointed him maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's Basilica. He left the post four years later, unable to continue as a layman under the papacy of Paul IV, and held similar positions at St. John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore in the following decade. Palestrina returned to the Cappella Giulia in 1571 and remained at St Peter's until his death in 1594.
Primarily known for his masses and motets, which number over 105 and 250 respectively, Palestrina had a long-lasting influence on the development of church and secular music in Europe, especially on the development of counterpoint. According to Grove Music Online, Palestrina's "success in reconciling the functional and aesthetic aims of Catholic church music in the post-Tridentine period earned him an enduring reputation as the ideal Catholic composer, as well as giving his style (or, more precisely, later generations' selective view of it) an iconic stature as a model of perfect achievement."
Biography Palestrina was born in the town of Palestrina east of Rome and then part of the Papal States, to Neapolitan parents, Santo and Palma Pierluigi, in 1525, possibly on 3 February. His mother died on 16 January 1536, when Palestrina was ten. Documents suggest that he first visited Rome in 1537, when he was listed as a chorister at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the papal basilicas of the Diocese of Rome, which allowed him to learn literature and music. In 1540, he moved to Rome, where he studied in the school of the Huguenot Claude Goudimel. He also studied with Robin Mallapert and Firmin Lebel. He spent most of his career in the city.
Palestrina came of age as a musician under the influence of the northern European style of polyphony, which owed its dominance in Italy primarily to two influential Netherlandish composers, Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, who had spent significant portions of their careers there. Italy itself had yet to produce anyone of comparable fame or skill in polyphony. Orlando di Lasso, who accompanied Palestrina in his early years, also played an important role in the formation of his style as an adviser.
From 1544 to 1551, Palestrina was the organist of the Cathedral of St. Agapito, the principal church of his native city. In 1551 Pope Julius III (previously the Bishop of Palestrina) appointed Palestrina maestro di cappella or musical director of the Cappella Giulia,Lino Bianchi, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Julian Chapel, in the sense of choir), the choir of the chapter of canons at St. Peter's Basilica. Palestrina dedicated to Julius III his first published compositions (1554), a book of Masses. It was the first book of Masses by a native composer, since in the Italian states of Palestrina's day, most composers of sacred music were from the Low Countries, France, or Spain. In fact, the book was modelled on one by Cristóbal de Morales: the woodcut in the front is almost an exact copy of the one from the book by the Spanish composer.
In 1555, Pope Paul IV ordered that all papal choristers should be clerical. As Palestrina married early in life and had four children, he was unable to continue in the chapel as a layman.
During the next decade, Palestrina held positions similar to his Julian Chapel appointment at other chapels and churches in Rome, notably the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran (1555–1560, a post previously held by Lassus), and Santa Maria Maggiore (1561–1566). In 1571 he returned to the Julian Chapel and remained at St Peter's for the rest of his life. The decade of the 1570s was difficult for him personally: he lost his brother, two of his sons, and his wife, Lucrezia Gori, in three separate outbreaks of the plague (1572, 1575, and 1580, respectively). He seems to have considered becoming a priest at this time, but instead he remarried, this time to a wealthy widow, Virginia Dormoli. This finally gave him financial independence (he was not paid well as choirmaster) and he was able to compose prolifically until his death.
He died in Rome of pleurisy on 2 February 1594. As was usual, Palestrina was buried on the same day he died, in a plain coffin with a lead plate on which was inscribed Ioannes Petrus Aloysius Praenestinus Musicæ Princeps. A five-part Libera me Domine psalm for three choirs was sung at the funeral.Zoe Kendrick Pyne, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: His Life and Times (London: Bodley Head, 1922). Palestrina's funeral was held at St. Peter's, and he was buried beneath the floor of the basilica. His tomb was later covered by new construction and attempts to locate his grave have been unsuccessful.
Italian composers Giovanni Maria Nanino and Gregorio Allegri, both of them disciples of his school, continued his works.
Music Overview
Palestrina left hundreds of compositions, including 105 masses, 68 offertories, at least 140 madrigals and more than 300 motets. In addition, there are at least 72 hymns, 35 magnificats, 11 litanies, and four or five sets of lamentations. The Gloria melody from Palestrina's Magnificat Tertii Toni (1591) is widely used today in the resurrection hymn tune, Victory (The Strife Is O'er).
His attitude toward madrigals was somewhat enigmatic: whereas in the preface to his collection of Canticum canticorum (Song of Songs) motets (1584) he renounced the setting of profane texts, only two years later he was back in print with Book II of his secular madrigals (some of these being among the finest compositions in the medium). He published just two collections of madrigals with profane texts, one in 1555 and another in 1586. The other two collections were spiritual madrigals, a genre beloved by the proponents of the Counter-Reformation.
Palestrina's masses show how his compositional style developed over time. His Missa sine nomine seems to have been particularly attractive to Johann Sebastian Bach, who studied and performed it while writing the Mass in B minor.Christoph Wolff, Der Stile Antico in der Musik Johann Sebastian Bachs: Studien zu Bachs Spätwerk (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1968), pp. 224–225. Most of Palestrina's masses appeared in thirteen volumes printed between 1554 and 1601, the last seven published after his death.James Garrat, Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
One of his most important works, the Missa Papae Marcelli (Pope Marcellus Mass) has been historically associated with erroneous information involving the Council of Trent. According to this tale (which forms the basis of Hans Pfitzner's opera Palestrina), it was composed in order to persuade the Council of Trent that a draconian ban on the polyphonic treatment of text in sacred music (as opposed, that is, to a more directly intelligible homophonic treatment) was unnecessary.John Bokina, Opera and Politics (New York: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 129–131. However, more recent scholarship shows that this mass was in fact composed before the cardinals convened to discuss the ban (possibly as much as 10 years before). Historical data indicates that the Council of Trent, as an official body, never actually banned any church music and failed to make any ruling or official statement on the subject. These stories originated from the unofficial points-of-view of some Council attendees who discussed their ideas with those not privy to the council's deliberations. Those opinions and rumors have, over centuries, been transmuted into fictional accounts, put into print, and often incorrectly taught as historical fact. While Palestrina's compositional motivations are not known, he may have been quite conscious of the need for intelligible text; however, this was not to conform with any doctrine of the Counter-Reformation, because no such doctrine exists. His characteristic style remained consistent from the 1560s until the end of his life. Roche's hypothesis that Palestrina's seemingly dispassionate approach to expressive or emotive texts could have resulted from his having to produce many to order, or from a deliberate decision that any intensity of expression was unbecoming in church music, reflects modern expectations about expressive freedom and underestimates the extent to which the mood of Palestrina's settings is adapted to the liturgical occasions for which the texts were set, rather than the line-by-line meaning of the text, and depends on the distinctive characters of the church modes and variations in vocal grouping for expressive effect. Performing editions and recordings of Palestrina have tended to favour his works in the more familiar modes and standard (SATB) voicings, under-representing the expressive variety of his settings.
There are two comprehensive editions of Palestrina's works: a 33-volume edition published by Breitkopf and Härtel, in Leipzig Germany between 1862 and 1894 edited by Franz Xaver Haberl, and a 34-volume edition published in the mid twentieth century, by Fratelli Scalera, in Rome, Italy edited by R. Casimiri and others.
Church music Palestrina left a vast oeuvre in the field of church music, including 105 masses, over 300 motets, 35 magnificats, a cycle of lamentations, 11 litanies, more than 70 hymns and 68 offertories.Roche, Jerome. "Palestrina". In: Oxford Studies of Composers, 1971; 7 His early works were strongly influenced by the Franco-Flemish school, reflecting the trainings of his masters. However, his aesthetic evolution soon shifted toward a progressive simplification of polyphony. This did not, however, imply a reduction in technical complexity, but rather a desire to discipline the excess of freedom that characterized much of the Flemish generation in their interpretation of text, favoring expressive clarity and the transparency of musical textures, while simultaneously emphasizing specific meanings through musical devices. The text in his works takes on such importance that it often defines the entire structure of the composition.Stevens, Denis William. "Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina". Encyclopedia Britannica online