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PALESTRINA IN THE VOICES OF THE CORO DE CAMARA ADROGUE

by María Mendizábal*

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, born in the Italian city from which the musician takes his name (born 1525 circa, died in Rome in 1594), is the author of the "Salve Regina" Mass, magnificent work that the Coro de Cámara Adrogué, conducted by Marcelo Ortiz Rocca, will perform on august 13^th, 1998 at the Nuestra Señora de la Merced Basilica, in Buenos Aires city.

We are making reference to a musician that was considered by his contemporaries as a composer of great talent -creator of a style that in the second half of the XVI century would make school- also one of the most reputed choir conductors by the time in Europe. He played a decisive paper in the development of the musical history of the Catholic Church, when achieving that the counter reform would accept the polyphony as a valid composition procedure for liturgy.

His career and compositive production are really impressive. Since he was very young he sang at the Santa María Maggiore's Choir and in 1544 he was already an organist in the Cathedral of San Agapito, in Palestrina. In 1551 the Pope Jules III -who had been before the bishop of his native city- names him Chapel Master of the San Pietro's Basilica. In 1555 he is accepted by the choir of the Sistine, official Chapel of the Pope's ceremonial. This is an eloquent fact to evaluate the high consideration that he had as a musician, because for belonging to that choir it was an excluding condition to be celibate. And Palestrina, further than not being a priest, was already married and had three children.

The Pope Jules III was followed by the Pope Marcello II, who presumably requested Palestrina to compose his famous "Papae Marcelli" Mass. But the Supreme Pontiff is surprised by the death, remaining at the front of the Church for only three weeks. He was followed by Paolo IV, a staunch defender of the counter reform that, according to this, demanded the resignation of Palestrina in september of 1555 and also of other two married singers of the Sistine Chapel Choir.

It is necessary to remember that the Church was by the time in the middle of religious conflict: the Council of Trent that had it sessions between 1545 and 1563, was generated by the necessity of counteracting the reformist movement begun by Luther. A revision of the liturgy was undertaken in order to modernize the practices and to differ of the Protestant heresy. Art had a remarkable mission: while the Protestantism rejected the artistic manifestations in any of its ways, the Catholicism took the art as a weapon against the heretical doctrines. In such a context, the puritan tendency is not only presented in the celibacy demands for the choir; as example can be mentioned that the Pope Paolo IV ordered to paint garments of dressing on the nudes of Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel.

Palestrina career goes on, nevertheless, as a succesfull Chapel Master in San Juan Letrán and then, in 1561 as the conductor, in Santa María Maggiore, the choir where he had been a singer in his youth. His reputation in this period is immense and he is hired between 1567 and 1571 by the wealthy Cardinal Hipólito II d'Este for the musical service in Tívoli, outside of Rome. He was also required by the Emperor Maximilian II to be transferred to Vienna as the Conductor of the Imperial Choir, but they did not reach an economic agreement due to the high pretenses of Palestrina.

In 1571 he returns to San Pietro, to the Giulia Chapel, in charge of the Choir conduction. And became from then the official composer of the Pope's ceremonial. The seventies, however, were not an easy time in his personal life: two of his children and his wife die. By then, he seriously considers becoming a priest, but however in 1581 he is married again, this time with the widow of a Roman merchant of furs. In this time, he is not only devoted to music, but also to business.

In 1578 the Pope Gregory XIII requested Palestrina and Anibale Zoilo (Chapel Master of San Juan Letrán) the revision of the traditional Church song book to be added to that done earlier on lyrics .. After the publication of the breviary and of the missal recommended by the Council of Trent, both musicians were asked to expurgate, correct and reform the Antiphonaries, Graduals and Psalters for the use of the whole Church, as a substitute of the local variants. Nevertheless, this work was not completed by Palestrina.

A true legend about Palestrina began to circulate even before his death, happened in 1594. A proof of this is the dedicatory "To the most celebrated and glorious choir teacher" that a group of grateful contemporary composers (Asola, Porta, Gastoldi and Croce) placed on the cover of his edition of "Psalms for Four Voices " in 1592. The text of his tablet in the New Chapel of the Vatican prays: "Prince of Music".

We have said above that his composition production was remarkable: 104 Masses, and the ten Mantua Masses discovered in the Conservatory of Milano, add to his 375 Motets, Lamentations, 65 Hymns, Magnificats, 68 Offertories, two books of spiritual Madrigals and around 90 profane Madrigals. Such an amount of works as it's shows a great fertility and ability for the composition, at the time that describes a personality that was able to combine a vigorous religious feeling with other mundane, both vastly developed.

To value the personality and the artistic capacity of Palestrina, it is necessary to highlight that he was the musician that was able to make the Church accept his own style as the only valid aesthetic model. According to the Council of Trent, the complexity that the vocal and instrumental liturgical music had acquired in the previous century, was not valid as a counter reform style, and for such reason it was necessary to return to simplicity and exact understanding of the text.

That's why the "Papae Marcelli" Mass seems to have occupied a decisive position in the Council of Trent: it's composed in a almost homorhythmic style (note against note, something strange in the characteristic profile of his work) that gives as a result, a very clear pronunciation of text. It was possibly written by Palestrina as a way of demonstrating that polyphony was not opposed to the new requirements of an art that should produce an immediate and clear feeling in the faithful ones.

A high percentage of the 104 Masses of Palestrina were composed on topics of the traditional book song of the Church. It is the case of the "Salve Regina" Mass that gives place to this note, developed from one of the four Marian Antiphons (Antiphons B.M.V. or Beatae Mariae Virginis: Alma Redemptoris Mater, Ave Regina Caelorum, Regina Caeli Laetare and Salve Regina), all them derived in Masses for four, five and six voices a capella in Palestrina's work.

The "Salve Regina" Mass is composed of the following numbers, according to the ordinary cult: Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Gloria In Excelsis Deo, Qui Tollis Peccata Mundi, Credo In Unum Deum, Crucifixus, Et Iterum Venturus Est, Et In Spiritum Sanctum, Sanctus, Pleni Sunt, Hosanna, Benedictus, Hosanna, and Agnus Dei, divided in two.

Produced by Palestrina in his characteristical clean writing, this Mass has been read by the Coro de Cámara Adrogué from a transcription of an original manuscript revised by Charles Bordes, conductor of Les Chanteurs de Saint Gervais Choir, Paris, in the decade of 1890. This French musician, together with Vincent d' Indy and Alexandre Guilmant, was one of the founders in 1894 of the Schola Cantorum Society, devoted to the restitution of the master works of religious music and the highlighting of Palestrina's works as a model of polyphonic music. Admiration shared by so many, century after century, as Beethoven who -as he used to say - would have never compared himself to Palestrina in the writing of ecclesiastical music.