Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1

by Unknown

From a portrait in Naumann's History of Music.

It was probably on account of this mass, however, that Palestrina came back to the papal choir. He did not come as a singer this time, but a new office was created for him, that of "Composer to the Pontifical Choir." It may be mentioned here that none of the different positions which Palestrina occupied took him out of the reach of pecuniary cares, and he never received an adequate recompense for his labors; yet one may doubt whether he ever suffered absolute poverty; his wife is said by some historians, to have been well-to-do, and the friendship of different cardinals could not have been without some pecuniary results. Palestrina was blessed with many true and steadfast admirers who must have atoned in some degree for the jealousies of his brother-musicians. His wife was devoted to him, the cardinal D'Este was a friend, in addition to the two cardinals already mentioned; but the great solace of his career was the close companionship of the most musical and devout of priests, Filippo Neri, who has since been made saint by the church. As this priest was the founder of the oratorio it is not too much to imagine that Palestrina may have helped him with advice and music and thus have assisted at the birth of the loftiest religious form of later times. Yet in the midst of all his work, and in the enjoyment of all his companionships, the life of Palestrina is in startling contrast with the brilliant and well-rewarded career of his contemporary, Orlando di Lasso. If ever the Catholic church desires to canonize a musical composer, it will find devoutness, humility, and many other saintly characteristics in Palestrina. The great pang of his life was the loss of his promising boys just as they began to prove to him that his musical instruction had planted seeds in fertile soil. The one son who outlived him seems to have been a sordid and heartless wretch in vivid contrast to the character of his father, whose compositions he recklessly scattered from mercenary motives. Yet the life of Palestrina must have had its moments of sunshine. Probably the most striking of these occurred in 1575, the jubilee year, when, as a compliment to their distinguished townsman, 1500 singers from the city of Palestrina entered Rome, divided into three companies, singing the works of the composer, while he, marching at the head of the vocal army, directed the musical proceedings. In 1571, after the death of Animuccia (a pupil of Claudio Goudimel), Palestrina became leader of the choir of St. Peter's and soon after he became a teacher in the music school which his friend Giovanni Maria Nanini opened in Rome, a school which gave rise to many composers, and which established the early Italian composition on a firmer basis than ever before. In 1593 Palestrina became musical director to Cardinal Aldobrandini, but he was now an old man and his death ensued soon after; but his activity continued unabated almost up to his decease; even to his very last days he produced works which remain monuments of his energy. In January, 1594, he published thirty "Spiritual Madrigals" for five voices, in praise of the Holy Virgin, and this was his last work, for he died less than a month later. He had already begun another work, a volume of masses to be dedicated to Clement VIII., when he was attacked by pleurisy; the disease hastened to a fatal ending, for he was ill but a week, receiving extreme unction January 29th and dying February 2d, 1594, in the arms of his friend Philip Neri; his most famous contemporary, Orlando di Lasso, died just four months later, so that the end of the Flemish school, and the brilliant beginning of the Italian church school come very close together.

Of the character of Palestrina's music we shall speak below, but it may be stated here that there has never existed a composer at once so prolific and so sustainedly powerful. The mere list of his compositions would take considerable space, for he composed 93 masses for from four to eight voices, 179 motettes, 45 sets of hymns for the entire year, 3 books of "Lamentations," 3 books of Litanies, 2 books of Magnificats, 4 books of Madrigals, a wonderful Stabat Mater, and very much more that is unclassified. A list that is absolutely stupendous when the character of the works is remembered. Through the enterprise of Messrs. Breitkopf & Härtel all of these works will soon have appeared in print.

Palestrina is buried in St Peter's in the chapel of Sts. Simon and Judas. The simple inscription on his tomb runs:

Johannes Petrus Aloysius Praenestinus,
Musicæ Princeps.

It is but natural to find the old Italian writers showering down laudatory adjectives on Palestrina. Undoubtedly Palestrina and Di Lasso, whose careers are almost exactly contemporaneous, were the two chief composers of the 16th century, and it is equally undoubted that of these two Palestrina was much the more earnest and serious; but one may receive with some degree of caution such phrases as "the light and glory of music," "the Prince of Music," and "the Father of Music," all of which may be found in the early commentaries on his works. It must be borne in mind that Palestrina lived at a time when music was still largely a mathematical science, when the art (so far as it was an art) tended almost wholly towards the intellectual, and when the emotional side, which is so important an element with the moderns, was scarcely recognized. It is an odd coincidence that the very year in which the two great composers of intellectual polyphony died (1594) saw the birth of the emotional school in the shape of the first opera, "Dafne." We must not search for great emotional display in the modern sense, even in the "Lamentations" or the "Stabat Mater" of Palestrina, but if we judge his works from the standard of dignity and a pure leading of the voices even in the most intricate passages, we shall find them to be most perfect models, and it was through the complex progressions of the old counterpoint that our modern style was evolved; Palestrina and Di Lasso were the ploughmen who made the harvest of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Wagner, possible. The lack of definite rhythm (for the ancient counterpoint was the least rhythmic expression of music) is sometimes a stumbling-block in the way of modern appreciation of some of Palestrina's work, but the devout student of Bach will soon find himself an admirer of the pure and lofty vein of the older master. Krause, the historian, says: "I am convinced that this school possesses a permanent value for all time. The greatest art connoisseurs of the new school pay the greatest homage to the Palestrina style." Thibaut describes Palestrina as deeper than Di Lasso, and as such a master of the old church modes and of the pure school (in which the triad was the foundation of everything and the seventh chords were not admitted) that calmness and repose are to be found in a greater degree in his works than in the compositions of any other composer. Palestrina has been called the "Homer of Music," and there is something in his stately style that makes the phrase a fitting one.

PALESTRINA.

From a portrait by Schnorr, engraved by Amsler and re-engraved by Deblois. This portrait has evidently been suggested
by the Vatican portrait. (See frontispiece.) Authentic portraits of Palestrina are extremely rare.