Probably born in, and taking his
name from, a small town near Home, Palestrina gained his musical
education in Rome itself. He was a choirboy there, and lived most
of his life in the city, with years of service to three important
basilicas: St Peter's, St John Lateran, and Santa Maria Maggiore.
First an organist and choirmaster for the cathedral in Palestrina,
he became choirmaster of the Cappella Giulia (Julian Chapel) in St
Peter's in 1551. While there he published his first book of
Masses, in 1554, citing Popejulius III as his patron. Within a
year of this he became a member of the Papal choir in the Sistine
Chapel, although, having been married since 1547, he had to leave
when a new pope introduced a celibacy ruling. He went on to be
choirmaster at St John Lateran (succeeding Lassus), and then at
the more important Santa Maria Maggiore.
During the 1570s Rome was hit by
plague, which claimed the lives of Palestrina's wife, two of their
children, and a brother, tragedies which led him to start training
for the priesthood. However, within eight months of his wife's
death he had married a wealthy widow, and he went on to excel
himself at managing her fur business. In 1571, he was reappointed
to the Julian Chapel, where he remained
as choirmaster until his death. Offers from Duke Gugliclmo Gonzaga
in Mantua and the Emperor Maximilian I! in Vienna could not entice
him away from Rome.
Palestrina was a prolific composer,
writing mainly sacred music such as Masses, motets, and
Magnificats, in the a cappella style (no instrumental
accompaniment), as well as both secular and sacred madrigals; the
pinnacle of his achievement
is in his Masses, of which he
wrote more than one hundred.
He spent his working life under
the influence of the Counter-Reformation. The Council of Trent in
particular savagely censored the arts, condemning, among other
things, the inclusion of secular material in sacred work, and the
overuse of instruments. It was claimed that the polyphonic style
of composition was too ornate, and that the complexity of such
music obscured rather than enhanced the words of the religious
service; some reformers urged a return to the simpler, monophonic
plainchant as the permissible form of celebrating the Liturgy.
With his famous Missa Papac Marcelli (dedicated to Pope
Marcellus II), Palestrina proved that polyphonic music could
project its sacred message with sufficient clarity to comply with
the Council's dictates. Legend has it that he wrote the Mass
expressly for the Council; whether this is true, it is for this
composition that he is deemed by some to have been the "saviour of
Church music."
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