Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/197

 PALESTRINA 179 In early youth Palestrina studied at Rome in company with Animuccia, and, perhaps also, Giovanni Maria Nanini, in a music-school founded by GOTJDIMEL (q.v.). After this, we hear no more of him until 1551, when, by favour of Pope Julius III., he was elected Magister Cappelke and Magister Puerorum at the Cappella Giulia, S. Pietro in Vaticano, with a salary of six scudi per month, and a house. Three years later he published his First Book of Masses, dedicated to Pope Julius III., and beginning with the Missa &quot; Ecce Sacerdos magnus,&quot; concerning which we shall have to speak more particularly hereafter. 1 On January 13, 1555, Palestrina was enrolled, by com mand of Pope Julius III., among the singers of the Cappella Sistina. This honour involved the resignation of his office at the Cappella Giulia, which was accordingly bestowed upon his friend Animuccia. But the legality of the new appointment was disputed on the ground that Palestrina was married, and the father of four children, his wife, Lucrezia, being still alive ; and, though, for the moment, the pope s will was law, the case assumed a different complexion after his death, which took place only five weeks afterwards. The next pope, Marcellus II., was succeeded, after a reign of twenty-three days, by Paul IV. ; and within less than a year,, that stern reformer dismissed Palestrina, together with two other married singers, Ferrabosco and Bari, with a consolatory pension of six scudi per month to each. This cruel disappointment caused Palestrina a dangerous illness ; but better fortune was in store. In October 1555 he was appointed Maestro di Cappella at the Lateran, without forfeiting his pension ; and in February 1561 he exchanged this preferment for a similar one, with an allowance of sixteen scudi per month, at Santa Maria Maggiore. Palestrina remained in office at this celebrated basilica for ten years ; and it was during this period that the most critical event in his life took place an event of such grave importance that its results have never ceased to furnish matter for discussion to the musical historian from the time of its occurrence to the present day. In 1562 the council of Trent censured the pre valent style of ecclesiastical music with extreme severity. In 1564 Pope Pius IV. commissioned eight cardinals to investigate the causes of complaint ; and these proved to be so well founded that it was seriously proposed to forbid the use of all music in the services of the church, except unisonous and unaccompanied plain-chant a proceeding which, so far as the church was concerned, would have rendered the &quot; art of music, &quot; properly so called, a dead letter, not only for the time being, but in perpetuity, for the decree, once promulgated, could only have been repealed by another general council. It is evident that very gross abuses must Lave been needed to justify so stringent a measure as this in the eyes of men accustomed to regard art as the obedient handmaid of religion; yet, strange to say, the nature of these abuses has never yet been clearly established by any musical historian, either English or foreign. Baini devotes several chapters of his great work 2 to their dis cussion, but without arriving at any definite conclusion. Barney and Hawkins seem to have regarded the question as one involving no deeper significance than a more or less exalted standard of artistic purity. Ambros, generally so reasonable a critic, denies the existence of any just ground of complaint at all, even in the limited sense claimed by Barney and Hawkins, and condemns the severer censures of Baini and his followers as attempts to sub stantiate a groundless myth. Bernsdorf speaks little less strongly, simply because a certain tradition, which represented the circum stances as having taken place in 1555, during the short reign of Pope Marcellus II., has been proved to be certainly false. That more than one groundless myth have been substituted for the real 1 The first edition of this was printed in 1554 ; the second with a title-page representing Palestrina offering his music to the Pope in 1572. 2 Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Rome, 1828. account of the occurrence is true enough one, at least, involving an anachronism of no less than twelve centuries. But no sober historian has ever credited these absurd stories ; and it is not to them that Baini gives currency or that Ambros objects. The misfortune is that each successive narrator has perpetuated the vague statements of his predecessors, instead of seeking for infor mation at original sources ; and this mistaken course has resulted in an infinity of oracular utterances, no two of which agree. To conflicting opinions like these, one only form of answer is possible that furnished by contemporary documents. Fortunately, an immense amount of church music, written in the style universally cultivated at the period of which we are treating, has been preserved to us both in MS. and in print ; and, though the forms of notation employed by its transcribers are no longer in common use, students of medieval music are able to decipher them with absolute certainty. Objections like those raised by Ambros can therefore be met by reference to examples of the music actually sung at the time the council of Trent condemned the then prevail ing style. The first impression derived from the study of these venerable records tends to confirm a statement already made, to the effect that the art of music was rapidly degenerating into a mere system of figures. There is evidence enough to prove the existence, from the 14th century downwards, of a growing tendency to cultivate, at the expense of ideal beauty, certain forms of technical ingenuity worthy only of association with a clever conundrum. A canon which could be sung upside down, as well as backwards and forwards, was more highly esteemed than one that could be sung backwards and forwards only. The amount of skjll and learning wasted on the construction of such canons was almost incredible ; and equally so was the puerility of the conceits with which men known to have been profound scholars endeavoured to give an additional zest to their strange inventions. When the construction of a canon, often written in the form of a cross or a rainbow, was so complicated that it was almost impossible to find out how to sing it, they hinted at the secret by means of a motto as obscure as the music itself. In one instance, Ecspice me, ostende mifii faciem tuam, indicates that two singers are to hold the music between them, each reading it upside down from the other s point of view. In another, Justitia et Pax osculatse sunt intimates that two singers are to begin simultaneously at opposite ends of the music, singing all the notes in correct time until they meet in the middle. In a third case, Barpaxos e/c 2epi&amp;lt;/&amp;gt;oi&amp;lt; means that a certain voice is to be silent in allusion to ^Elian s assertion that the frogs on the island of Seriphus do not croak. We do not say that all the music of the period was of this character; but a multitude of such examples, written by the most celebrated musicians of the Middle Ages, have been preserved to us, and most of them are adapted to the words of the Mass. Surely the council had just right to complain of this. Another still more serious abuse consisted in the introduction, among the words of the Mass, of foreign passages having no connexion whatever with the original text, one voice being made to sing &quot;Alleluia&quot; or &quot;Ave Maria,&quot; while others were singing the words of the &quot;Credo&quot; or the &quot;Sanctus.&quot; In order to justly appreciate the true bearing of this very prevalent abuse, it will be necessary for the English Church composer to divest himself of certain not very unnatural prejudices, and, first of all, of the idea that the custom implied intentional irreverence on the part of those who introduced it, which, in spite of appearances, it certainly did not. In England the music sung forms an essential part of the service. This is not the case with the Mass. In reciting the prescribed form of words with the prescribed ceremonies, the officiating priest fulfils unaided all the necessary conditions of the service, while the congregation looks on and worships, and the choir endeavours to excite its devotion by singing appropriate music. As a matter of fact, the words to which this music is set are identical with a portion of those recited by the priest ; but they represent no essential element of the service, nor are they for the most part sung at the same time that the priest recites them. Except in the delivery of a few responses, the action of the choir is entirely independent of that of the priest ; and the action of the congregation is independent of both. Each member of it may use any book of devotions he pleases, and he will generally be careful to use prayers and meditations suitable to the festival in which he is taking part. For instrnce, at Christmas he will meditate on the nativity of our Lord, at Easter on His resurrection, continuing his meditations on these subjects, without reference, during the greater part of the mass, to the words the priest is reciting. It is only by bearing these facts carefully in mind that we can rightly understand what is to follow. The mediaeval composer very rarely constructed his Mass upon an original subject. His favourite plan was to select as his principal theme a fragment of some well-known plain-chant hymn or antiphon, and from the words proper to this melody technically called the canto fermotlic Mass was named. We