Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/241

MASS. mix together the text of the Liturgy, and that of the Ave Maria; while a Mass is still extant in which the Tenor is made to sing 'Alleluia,' incessantly, from beginning to end. When the text was left intact, the rhythm was involved in complications which rendered the sense of the words utterly unintelligible. Profane melodies, and even the verses belonging to them, were shamelessly introduced into the most solemn compositions for the Church. All the vain conceits affected by the earlier writers were revived, with tenfold extravagance. Canons were tortured into forms of ineffable absurdity, and esteemed only in proportion to the difficulty of their solution. By a miserable fatality, the Mass came to be regarded as the most fitting possible vehicle for the display of these strange monstrosities, which are far less frequently met with in the Motet, or the Madrigal. Men of real genius fostered the wildest abuses. Even Pierre de la Rue—who seems to have made it a point of conscience to eclipse, if possible, the fame of Josquin's ingenuity—wrote his Missa, 'O saltitaris Hostia,' in one line, throughout; leaving three out of the four Voices to follow the single part in strict Canon. In the Kyrie of this Mass—which we reprint, in modern notation, from the version preserved by Glareanus —the solution of the ænigma is indicated by the letters placed above and below the notes. C shows the place at which the Contra-tenor is to begin, in the interval of a Fifth below the Superius. T indicates the entrance of the Tenor, an Octave below the Superius: B, that of the Bass, a Fifth below the Tenor. The same letters, with pauses over them, mark the notes on which the several parts are to end. The reader who will take the trouble to score the movement, in accordance with these directions, will find the harmony perfectly correct, in spite of some harshly dissonant passing-notes: but it is doubtful whether the most indulgent critic would venture to praise it for its devotional character.

It is easy to imagine the depths of inanity accessible to an ambitious composer, in his attempts to construct such a Canon as this, without a spark of Pierre de la Rue's genius to guide him on his way. Such attempts were made, every day: and, had it not been that good men and true were at work, beneath the surface, conscientiously preparing the way for a better state of things, Art would soon have been in a sorry plight. As it was, notwithstanding all these extravagances, it was making real progress. The dawn of a brighter day was very near at hand; and the excesses of the unwise only served to hasten its appearance.

The Fifth Epoch, extending from the year 1565 to the second decad of the following century, and justly called 'The Golden Age of Ecclesiastical Music,' owes its celebrity entirely to the influence of one grave earnest-minded man, whose transcendant genius, always devoted to the noblest purposes, and always guided by sound and reasonable principles, has won for him a place, not only on the highest pinnacle of Fame, but, also, in the inmost hearts of all true lovers of the truest Art.

The abuses to which we have just alluded became, in process of time, so intolerable, that the Council of Trent found it necessary to condemn them, in no measured terms. In the year 1564, Pope Pius IV commissioned eight Cardinals to see that certain decrees of the Council were duly carried out. After much careful deliberation, the members of this Commission had almost determined to forbid the use of any polyphonic music whatever, in the Services of the Church: but, chiefly through the influence of Card. Vitellozzo Vitellozzi, and S. Carlo Borromeo, they were induced to suspend their judgment, until Palestrina, then Maestro di Capella of S. Maria Maggiore, should have proved, if he could, the possibility of producing music of a more devotional character, and better adapted to the words of the Mass, and the true purposes of Religion, than that then in general use. In answer to this challenge, the great Composer submitted to the Commissioners three Masses, upon one of which—first sung in the Sistine Chapel, on the Nineteenth of June, 1565, and since known as the Missa Papæ Marcelli —the Cardinals immediately fixed, as embodying the style in which all future Church music should be composed. It would be difficult to conceive a more perfect model. In depth of thought, intensity of expression, and all the higher qualities which distinguish the work of the Master from that of the pedant, the Missa Papæ Marcelli is universally admitted to be unapproachable; while, even when regarded as a monument of mere mechanical skill, it stands absolutely unrivalled. Yet, except in the employment of the Hypoionian Mode —a tonality generally avoided by the older composers—it depends for its effect, upon the introduction of no new element whatever, either of construction, or of form. Avoiding all show of empty pedantry, and carefully concealing the consummate art with which the involutions