Don’t you think it strange that we have not told you of any pieces written for the lute alone, or for the viol or any other instrument? The reason is that until 1700, there was little music for a solo instrument, but only for voices alone or for voice and instrument together.
The main sport of composers of this time, was to take a popular tune and write music around it. The popular tune was called the cantus firmus (subject or fixed song) and the composer who did the fanciest things with the tune was hailed as great. So instead of wanting to make up tunes as we do, they were anxious to see what they could do with old tunes. Times change, don’t they?
“Like children who break their toys to see how they work, they learned to break up the musical phrases into little bits which they repeated, which they moved from one part to another; in this way the dividing of themes (tunes) came, which led them to the use of imitation and of canon; these early and innocent gardeners finally learned how to make the trees of the enchanted garden of music bear fruit. Still timid, they kept the custom for three centuries of making all their pieces from parts of plain-song or of a popular song, instead of inventing subjects for themselves; thus, what is prized today above every thing else—the making of original melodies—was secondary in the minds of the musicians, so busy were they trying to organize their art, so earnestly were they trying to learn the use of their tools.” (Translated from the French from Palestrina, by Michel Brenet).
By spending their time this way, they added much to the science of music. If it was not pretty, at least it was full of interesting discoveries which composers used later, as we shall see, in fugues, canons, suites and many other forms.
The most popular forms of composition during these two centuries (the 15th and the 16th) were the motet for Church and the madrigal for outside the Church.
The motet probably gets its name from a kind of profane song (not sacred) that was called in Italian mottetto, and translated into French bon mot, means a jest. It dates back to the 13th century, and was disliked by the Church. The first motets used in the Church in the early 14th century are very crude to our ears, but interesting historically. The composers of the different schools of this period wrote many of them. Motets were usually those parts of the church ritual which depended on the day or season. They were not the regular unaltered parts like the mass itself.
This motet, or part-song, used as its central theme a tune already familiar to its hearers; this tune, the cantus firmus was sometimes a bit from a Gregorian chant or from a mass, but more often it was a snatch from a dance song or a folk song with very vulgar words, or it may have been a troubadour love song with anything but the right kind of words for the Church. The words for one part were often from the Bible and for other parts very coarse words from popular tunes. Imagine singing them at the same time! Still funnier, the words of the sacred song were sung in Latin and the popular song was sung in whatever language it happened to be written! Can you think of anything more ridiculous? The masses came to be known by the names from which the tune was taken and nearly every composer including the great Palestrina wrote masses on a popular tune of the day, L’homme armé (The Man in Armor). Yet they were all quite different, so varied had become the science of writing counterpoint.
Josquin des Près (1450–1521) the Flemish composer wrote a motet, Victimae Paschali, which is written around an old Gregorian plainchant, interwoven with two popular rondelli (in French roundel from which comes our terms roundelay and rondo) and a Stabat Mater of his. The cantus firmus, or subject of this motet is another secular or popular air.
The popular composers returned the compliment and took themes or tunes from church music and put secular words to them. History repeats itself, for we today take a tune from Handel’s Messiah and use it in Yes, We Have No Bananas and we jazz the beautiful and noble music of Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert and many others.
Yet this music,—the child we are watching grow up—because of mixing up sacred and profane music soon gets a big reprimand.
The northern part of France seems to have been the birthplace of the motet; a little later it found its way into Italy where some of the finest music of the period was written, and the Italian influence reached into Spain in the middle of the 15th century; at the end of the century the Venetian school had spread its work into Germany. In the 17th century the name motet was given to a kind of composition between a cantata and an oratorio, but it had nothing to do with the famous motet of the 15th and 16th centuries which we are discussing.
To show you how clever the men were in these days, one composer wrote a motet in thirty-six parts!
In the Library of the Sistine Chapel in Rome are volumes containing the motets of the 14th century, copied, of course, by hand in notes large enough to be seen and read by the whole choir! These books are beautifully decorated in gold and lovely colors, or illuminated, and are of great value.
All music of this period not composed for the Church had the general name of Madrigal, but a real madrigal was a vocal composition for from three to six parts written on a secular subject, which often gave to the work a grace and lightness not in the motet. The vocal madrigals were to the music lovers of that day what chamber music is today, for instruments were not yet used without singing. Later, the lute played the chief melody with the voice, and it was only a step to have other instruments play the other parts of the madrigal. The instruments played a section of the composition alone while waiting for a solo singer to appear. He sang a part of the madrigal that was later called the air and the instrumental part was called the ritournelle, which literally meant that in this section of the work, the singer returned from “off-stage” where he had awaited his turn. By the end of the 16th century it had become the custom for motets as well as madrigals to have a solo air or aria, and an instrumental ritournelle, and this was the beginning of chamber music,—a very great oak which grew from a very little acorn.
In the first printed music books are many of the madrigals of the early period. We will tell you of the composers of this period separately, but remember that they all wrote practically the same kind of music,—masses, motets, and madrigals, but all with the subject borrowed from something they knew and with many parts for the voices. Often, too, the same tunes were used for Church and outside the Church. For this reason much music was published without the words, so that the singers could use sacred or profane words as they wished.
Strange as it may seem, it was the folk songs and ballads and not the learned church music, that had originality and came freely and sincerely from the hearts of the people.
Because these contrapuntal writings were heavy (can you imagine dancing to a canon?) a new kind influenced by folk music grew up among these people who were naturally gay and jolly and wished to be entertained. Songs for three and four parts appeared, more popular in style and simpler in form than the church motet and were the descendants of the music of the troubadours. These were in dance form, such as the French chanson, the vilanelle, the Italian canzona, canzonetta or little canzona, frottola, strambottes and the German lied. Many of these songs in dance form later inspired composers to write music for instruments alone, so that people danced to music without singing. These dance songs were called branles, pavanes, gaillardes, courantes, forlanes, rigaudons sarabandes, gigues, gavottes and many other names.
The favorite instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries was the lute. It fought for first place with the vielle, the viole, the harp, the psalterion and the portative organ, but won the fight and took its place beside the most famous singers of the day, sometimes for accompanying and again reaching the dignity of soloist, as we told you above. In the 15th century it took the form, which we see most often represented in pictures and in museums, with its six strings, graceful round body, and long neck bent back as you can see in plate opposite page 127 already described. As time went on this lute was made larger and strings were added until at the beginning of the 17th century, it was replaced by an instrument called the arch-lute or theorbo, which had twenty-four strings, a double neck, and two sets of tuning pins.
The spinets or virginals, the great-aunts of our pianofortes first came into vogue in the 15th and 16th centuries.
There was a notation called Tablature used in the 16th and 17th centuries to write down the music for lute and other stringed instruments such as the viol, cittern, theorbo. You will find, in pictures of Tablature, lines which look like our staff, but they do not form a staff, but simply represent the strings of the instrument. These lines vary according to the number of strings, from four for the cittern to six for the lute. The notation showed, not the position and fingering as we write music, but the position and fingering of frets and strings. Instead of neumes or notes you will find the alphabet up to the letter j, figures and queer dots and lines and slurs, but each sign had its own meaning and was important to the lutenist.
As music outgrows childhood, Schools of Music are started. But these are not like the schools to which we go every day, but are rather music groups or centers. Suppose you were a composer and lived in New York and knew a dozen or so musicians who were writing the same kind of music as you; the music, if good enough to be known and played, would be called the New York School, or it might be called the 1925 School! Or, if you were important enough to be imitated by your followers, it would be called the Smith School, if that happened to be your name, just as those who imitate Wagner are said to be the Wagner School, and so it goes. Not a school to go to, but a school to belong to!
“What makes these schools start?” we can hear you ask. Many things. Sometimes people are oppressed by their rulers and in trying to forget their troubles, they naturally want to express themselves in the art they know, and in this way groups get together and a school grows. Sometimes the Church is the cause of schools of music, literature, and art, and we shall see in this chapter how the Church influenced the schools of music of this time and made it one of the most important periods in this story. Sometimes, too, the climate has caused the development of different styles as we told you in the chapter on folk music. It often happens too, that a great man or a great school in one country affects other countries.
The first real group of composers to be called a “School” lived in the part of Europe that today covers the north of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The composers who were born from 1400 to about 1530, in the so-called Low Countries belonged to this school. Some writers claim that there were three schools, and that the Franco-Flemish (Gallo-Belgic) is a bridge between the Paris school of the 14th century and the Netherlands school of the 16th. But it would be impossible to say when one school began and another ended, as they all wrote the same kind of music. As the older composers were the teachers of the younger, the interesting thing to know is that many of these masters of the north of Europe went to Italy, Spain, France, and to Germany, and spread the knowledge of the “new art” of counterpoint and vocal poly-melody (many melodies) and filled positions of importance in the churches. They were considered such splendid teachers, that many of the young students of other nationalities went to Holland and Belgium to be taught.
Zeelandia, a Hollander, an important master in this new school, tried to get rid of the awkward intervals, fourths and fifths, which were used in organum (see Chapter VII), and was the first composer to give the subject or cantus firmus to the soprano voice instead of the tenor. Doesn’t it seem strange that it took so long to let the soprano have the main tune?
But the most important composer of his period (1400–1474) was Guillaume Dufay, from Flanders, who was a chorister in the Papal choir (choir of the Pope) in Rome. He made the rules and imitation for the canon (a grown up round) and he was the first composer to use the folk song L’homme armé (The Man in Armor) in a mass.
The next important name is Jan Okeghem (1430–1495), a Hollander, who improved the science of counterpoint and of fugue writing. We have already mentioned his canon for thirty-six voices (page 149), and he wrote some puzzle canons, for use in secret guilds. No one could solve these without the key and they were much harder than the world’s best cross-word puzzles. He tried to make music express the beauty he felt, and not merely be mathematical problems in tone, as was much of the music of his day. He was the teacher of several famous musicians among whom were Hobrecht (who became the teacher of Erasmus, the learned Dutch religious reformer), Tinctoris, Josquin des Près, Loyset Compère, and Agricola who spent most of his life in Spain and Portugal. In fact, Okeghem taught so many, that the art of counterpoint was taken into all countries by his pupils, so he can be called the founder of all music schools from his own day to the present. He was chaplain at the French court and, during forty years there, served three Kings of France!
Tinctoris, a Belgian (1446–1511), founded the first school of music in Italy at Naples, and wrote a dictionary of musical terms.
But the “Prince” of musicians of the 15th century, was Josquin des Près, or de Près (1455–1525). He was a pupil of Okeghem, and although born in Flanders, spent much of his life away from his home; he was a member of the Papal choir in Rome and afterwards lived at the court of Louis XII in France. He also wrote a mass on the theme of L’homme armé, and many other masses, motets, and madrigals. Luther said of him,—“Josquin des Près is a master of the notes. They do as he wills. Other composers must do as the notes will. His compositions are joyous, gentle and lovely; not forced, not constrained, nor slavishly tied to the rules, but free as the song of a finch.”
Josquin des Près had many pupils, and among them were many who became famous. Clement Janequin, or Jannequin, is one of the best known from his music, and least known from the facts of his life. Most of his works are of a secular nature and are original and amusing, and so perfect that some people thought him as good as his popular teacher. He was one of the first serious composers to imitate the sounds of Nature in music!
One of his famous madrigals is the Chant des Oiseaux (Song of the Birds) in which he tries to represent the sounds of birds of all kinds. In the middle of the piece is heard the hoot of an owl; the birds get together and chase away the poor hated owl, calling him a traitor, then all is quiet again. Another of his pieces is named The Cackle of Women! Another famous one still frequently sung is the Battle of Marignan (1515), a lively piece in varied rhythm, which was one of the most popular army songs of the 16th century. The words and music imitate, first the tools of war, then the noise of the cannons and the crackling of the guns, the joy of victory for the French, and the retreat of the Swiss.
Another eminent pupil of Josquin des Près was Nicolas Gombert, of Bruges. Like Jannequin, he was a Nature lover, and many of his madrigals imitate its sounds. Secular music was now popular, and his works show that a composer was allowed to give expression to his feelings and ideas, for the prejudices of the earlier church music had disappeared.
Jean Mouton, a native of Metz, was in the chapel of Louis XII and of François I, King of France. His style was like his master’s and some of his works were supposed to have been composed by Josquin.
Willaert was a pupil of both Josquin and Mouton. He was chapel master at St. Mark’s in Venice, and was so famous as a teacher that he attracted many good musicians, and became the founder of the famous Venetian school of composers. He wrote many madrigals, some of them on verses of Petrarch, the Italian poet. This work was accomplished after he was sixty years old!
Willaert was the first organist to use two and sometimes three choirs, each singing in four parts. Sometimes they sang in combination and sometimes answered each other antiphonally. According to Clarence G. Hamilton in his book Outlines of Music History, the idea of these choirs was probably suggested to Willaert because there were in St. Mark’s two very fine organs. In this you see the influence instruments have on the growth of musical compositions.
Willaert made use too, of the idea that the different parts could be sounded together to form chords, instead of individual melodies as was the case in poly-melody (polyphony or in the contrapuntal style). This was a new idea, for up to this time the musicians had been writing horizontal music, the melodic line looking something like this:
Willaert’s idea, which probably came from folk-song and from some of the hymns that Luther created, was colonnade-like (see Chapter VII) or perpendicular music, which we might illustrate like this:
in which each line represents a chord, with the melody at the top. This is how Harmony, or the science of chords, came into use as we know it now.
Among Willaert’s pupils were Cyprian de Rore of Antwerp, who succeeded his master at St. Mark’s, and most of his works were madrigals which gained him much fame in Italy. He was one of the first to use the chromatic scale (scale in semi-tones like black and white keys on the piano).
An Italian, Zarlino, pupil of Willaert, must be mentioned here, not as a writer of music but as the author of three most important books on harmony and theory. These books seem to have been very much needed for they were reprinted many times. Another Italian pupil of Willaert was Andrea Gabrieli, like his master, also an organist at St. Mark’s.
The greatest contribution from this Venetian school was its important use of instrumental music as an independent art, thus giving music a great push forward.
A composer whose motets and madrigals we still hear frequently is Jacob Arcadelt, a Netherlander, who spent most of his life in Italy, and shared with Willaert the glory of being one of the founders of the Venetian school. He was a singer at the court of Florence, singing master to the choir boys at St. Peter’s in Rome, and then he became a member of the Papal choir.
The life of Claude Goudimel seems, from the little we know, to have been dramatic. He is supposed to have been in Rome where he taught Palestrina, the greatest composer of the age. One writer says that he never was in Rome and was not the teacher of Palestrina! Even his birthplace is disputed. What is certain, however, is that he met his death in the massacre of the Huguenots (Protestants) at Lyons in 1572. He wrote many settings of Calvinist Psalms by Clement Marot which work led to his being a victim of the massacre.
One of the last of the Netherland school was Jan Sweelinck (1562–1621), the greatest organist of his time. He had so many pupils from every country in Europe, that he became the founder of a very famous school of organists. Among them were Scheidt, Reinken of whom the story is told that Bach as a young boy walked miles to hear him play, and Buxtehude, a Dane, who was one of the greatest of the time of Bach. Sweelinck perfected the Organ Fugue which Bach later made more beautiful than any other composer. Sweelinck’s talent and work were so deeply appreciated in his home, Amsterdam, that the merchants of that city gave him a generous income for his old age. A splendid thing to have done!
The greatest composer of this Netherland school was Orlandus Lassus, or Orlando di Lasso, or Roland de Lattre, take your choice! He was born in Mons, Belgium, some time between 1520 and 1532. When he was a child he had such a beautiful voice that he was kidnapped three times from the school where he lived with the other choristers. The third time he stayed with the Governor of Sicily, Ferdinand Gonzague, and went from Sicily to Milan, then to Naples and then to Rome where he became director of the choir of one of the most celebrated churches. After this he went to England and to France and finally returned to Antwerp. In 1557 he was invited to the court of the Duke of Bavaria in Munich to direct the chamber music. There he married a lady of the court and had two daughters and four sons, who were musicians. Later he was made master of the chapel, and the men who lived at that time said he was an inspiring choir director, a great composer, and was deeply reverenced and loved. The Duke was a splendid helper and patron of music, and encouraged him to make their choir of ninety men one of the finest in the world. Their lives were made so pleasant that a book, published in 1568, says, “had the Heavenly Choir been suddenly dismissed, it would straightway have made for the court of Munich, there to find peace and retirement!”
Lassus used wind and brass instruments to accompany the voices which were kept quite separate from the strings. At a banquet, the wind instruments were heard during the early courses, then the strings directed by someone else, then, during the dessert, Lassus would direct the singing of the choir. So “chamber music” appears at this point in the growth of music.
At the Duke’s suggestion, Lassus wrote music for seven Penitential Psalms which were sung to the unhappy King, Charles IX, after the massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew’s eve.
He wrote secular music as well as sacred and showed a keen sense of humor in several of his secular pieces.
Soon after 1574, he wrote a set of twenty-four pieces for two parts: twelve have words and are vocal duets, and the other twelve are without words, to be played on instruments. The two groups are exactly alike in form which shows that many of the motets and madrigals for voices were often played on instruments alone.
The Hymn to St. John from which Guido d’Arezzo took the names of the scale degrees, was made into a beautiful composition by Lassus; the tenor sings a cantus firmus of the tones of the scales, around which are woven many parts in counterpoint.
One festival day there was a violent storm in Munich, and orders were given that the usual procession from the Church through the town should not take place, but should be held inside the Church. As the head of the procession reached the porch of the Church, and the choir started a motet by Lassus, the sun suddenly came out and the procession went on as usual through the town. This was looked upon as a miracle, and whenever fine weather was wanted very much, this motet was chosen! This story does not tell whether the miracle always worked!
In Lassus’ later church music, he simplified the complicated contrapuntal style, perhaps because he lived in the country where Luther had introduced the chorale. (Page 166.) Even though Lassus wrote masses and motets for the Catholic Church, he must have heard these new hymns, and was unknowingly influenced by them.
A complete edition of all his works would fill almost sixty volumes. If you can realize the huge task all this must have been, you will not be surprised that his over-tired brain finally gave out and during the last five years of his life he did no more composing. He died in 1594.
Orlandus Lassus was the last and one of the greatest of this Netherland, or Franco-Flemish school, that for two hundred years had led the world of music. Music had changed from a cocoon, gradually developing into a radiant butterfly, or, in our book, we should say that music had left childhood and was becoming a stalwart lad.
Before leaving the subject of these northern madrigal writers, we must tell you about the famous French poet, Pierre de Ronsard, who was born just four hundred years ago (1525). He supplied more composers with words for their madrigals than any other poet of his age, and he also sang some of his poems put to music. He said that without music poetry was almost without grace, and that music without the melody of verse was lifeless. Of course, today the poetry and music have become so independent of each other, that many poets object to having verse made a servant of music, and many musicians think that music without words, that is, instrumental music, is the highest type of musical art.
In 1552, Ronsard asked four of the leading composers to set some of his sonnets to music. Jannequin, Pierre Certon, Claude Goudimel and Muret accepted, each composing music for the same ten sonnets. This experiment was so successful, that it was the talk of the entire court, and Ronsard published all the songs in his first volume of poetry. About the time that Shakespeare was born, in England, but long before he had said,
Ronsard wrote a preface to a collection of songs dedicated to King Charles IX, in which he says: “How could one get along with a man who innately hated music? He who does not honor music, is not worthy to see the soft light of the sun.”
Besides the four musicians who set the sonnets, others who used Ronsard poems as texts for songs and madrigals were Philip de Monte (or Mons), G. Costeley, organist to Charles IX, de la Grotte, organist to Henri III, and Orlandus Lassus.
Here is a little reminder of how music grew:
A scale came into use in Greece about 700 B.C.
It was separated into modes by the Greeks about 400 B.C.
It was adopted by the Romans and by the early Christians and was used until the 10th century A.D. with little change.
450 years before the Christian era was the Golden Age of Pericles in Greece.
450 years after the Christian era was the beginning of the Dark Ages.
Harmony was first attempted in 900 A.D.
Between 900 A.D. and 1400, music made little headway.
Music has travelled along two roads,—the Church road and the People’s road; they often crossed each other and became very much mixed up. You remember how popular songs had found their way into church music at the time of St. Gregory, and how the people took melodies from the masses, put profane words to them, and sang them in the taverns, at the street corners, in the tournaments and at work.
Early in the 15th century folk songs had again invaded the Church to the point that masses were known by the names of the folk songs from which they were taken. This led to a very important reform, as a result of which Palestrina, the greatest composer of the “Golden Age of Catholic Church Music,” wrote his beautiful masses and motets, and Luther, the founder of the Protestant faith, made up hymns that are still sung and loved throughout Christendom.
Many things happened between 1400 and 1600, the period called the Renaissance, or rebirth of the ancient Greek and Roman learning. At this time the people in Italy (later in Spain, France, England and Germany), awakened to study after the Dark Ages of war and conquest. Now the people tried to bring back the literature, drama, music, and sculpture of the Greeks and Romans. Read this list of men whose genius developed through the new learning: Hans Memling, the Flemish painter; Albrecht Dürer, the German painter and wood and copper engraver; Hans Holbein, the German painter; Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist, engineer and scientist, probably the most gifted man of all time; Michael Angelo, the Italian sculptor and poet; Raphael, Correggio and Titian, Italian painters; Cervantes, the Spanish dramatist, author of Don Quixote; Edmund Spenser of England, who wrote The Faery Queen; Copernicus, the astronomer and Christopher Columbus.
But the greatest event of this time was Gutenberg’s invention of printing (1455) which has spread learning over the face of the earth. Soon people were able to get books cheaper than the hand written scrolls. Until this great moment the monks had been writing by hand all books and music scores. Only the great and wealthy owned them, and very few could read or write, for what would be the sense of learning to read if one had nothing to read? So the invention of printing awakened the desire to know how to read books and to learn poetry, which sharpened people’s minds and enlightened them. 12,000 volumes were printed from 1463 to 1471 where perhaps a hundred had been written before.
The first press (wooden type) was set up by Charles VII (1459) in the Sorbonne in Paris, one of the greatest institutions of learning in the world which still attracts students from all countries. The first music was printed (1501 or 1502) by Ottaviano dei Petrucci in Venice, and were three or four books of motets by Italian, French, Flemish and German composers. Music was benefited by being printed clearly and many changes were made to make it easier to read. Up to this time it was worse than cross-word puzzles! It seemed to be the object of the composers before the Renaissance to make music look just as difficult as it possibly could, and there are many examples of enigmatical canons which were used in the spirit of games and could be solved only by those having the key to the puzzles.
But now the printers who were learned men in those days, simplified the notation, and did away with many useless signs. People began to read it more easily, and music became more popular. After Ottaviano died, Antonio Gardane and his sons founded a publishing house in Venice, which was most useful to composers. Then Paris and Antwerp began to have fine printers, and in 1542 Ballard was made sole printer of music to the King and nearly all the music through Louis XIV’s time (1638–1715) was printed by his descendants. Late in the 17th century the measures were separated by bars as they are today, and when metal was used for type instead of wood, the old square note became oval like ours.
At the beginning of the Renaissance Church music was again mixed with the most vulgar words from popular songs. “The bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes”—as in The Hunting of the Snark.
At this time the people were beginning to think and read for themselves, and to question whether the Church had the right to dictate to and control them as it had been doing. They thought, too, that many of the church officers were not good enough, and by degrees the people protesting, broke away from the Roman Church and formed others. Through this protest the Protestant church won its name; this is known as the Reformation. With the new church came the need for new services, new music and new ways of singing.
“Truth to Nature” was the slogan of the Renaissance.
In 1453, the Mohammedans captured Constantinople, and the Christian Church which had been there since the end of the 4th century, was driven out. Many of the learned Christians fled to Central Europe and brought with them a knowledge of Greek literature and art which they taught to the people.
Christopher Columbus, in his search for a passage to India, found a new continent, and in the same way these seekers for “Truth to Nature,” although they may not have found exactly what they were looking for, certainly opened gates that swept men and women towards knowledge, appreciation, refinement and culture.
The outstanding person in the Reformation of the Church was Martin Luther (1483–1546) who interests us specially for what he did for the growth of music. Luther was a priest of the Catholic Church, but he was also a German; he believed in a national life free from Church government, and in singing hymns in the language of the people instead of in Latin, in order that the words could be understood. He spoke and wrote openly against certain actions of the Church and for this he was put out of the Church of Rome. But, very soon, he had enough followers to start a church of his own, and one of the first things he did was to make a new music for it. Up to this time the only music in Germany had been some hymns translated from the Latin into the “vernacular,” the language of the people, the songs of the Minnesingers and Meistersingers, and a rich crop of folksongs that had appeared in the 14th century. There were also a few composers who had learned to write counterpoint in the Netherlands, Heinrich Isaak, Ludwig Senfl and Heinrich Fink, and they, too, influenced the music of the Reformation.
Luther, a musician himself, knew the love that his countrymen had for their hymns translated into German and for the folksongs, and realized that singing in which the congregation took part would be a power in the church. He had to gather material for new hymns simple enough for the people to sing, and besides he needed new music to replace the Mass. The result of his work is the chorale, the foundation of the great German school of music of the 18th and 19th centuries. He was helped in the work of creating these hymns by Johann Walther and Conrad Rupf. The first hymnal (1524) was selected from some of the finest Catholic hymns, Gregorian and Ambrosian melodies, dignified folk-melodies, and some original chorales by Luther himself.
He played the tunes of his chorales on a flute, and Walther wrote them down. He wrote to a friend, “I wish after the example of the Prophets and ancient Fathers of the Church, to make German Psalms for the people, and that is to say, sacred hymns, so that the word of God may dwell among the people by means of song also.” The strength and beauty of these hymns can be seen in Ein’ Feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress is Our God).
The hymns were harmonized in four parts. They were usually sung in unison (all singing the same thing) with the accompaniment of the organ or a group of instruments. This great change, or revolt, broke the backbone of polyphonic music, freed the spirit of the people, and first brought into use modern scales (major and minor, as we know them). Curiously enough, this Reformed Church Music also brought about the “Golden Age of Catholic Music” with Palestrina as its leading composer.
Martin Luther had hoped to reform the Church but instead founded a new one (another example of Columbus seeking a passage to India). But this action of Luther’s was a challenge to the Mother-Church, and steps were taken to reform many customs and practices in the Church itself. As we have pointed out many times, popular tunes with vulgar words had crept into the Church services. These works composed for the Church were used to show the skill of the composer rather than to express the love of God. Questions dealing with the reforms for purifying the services of the Church were taken up by the Council of Trent, a gathering of the learned Church men and the Catholic kings. The council lasted for twenty years (1542 or 3–1562). Fancy that for a club meeting! Towards the end of its long session, the council decided that all music in the “impure mode” (in popular style), should be banished from the Church. They decided, and we cannot see why they waited so long, that the Mass with popular airs and words not approved by the Church fathers should be prohibited. Palestrina had both the genius and the understanding to meet the requirements, and his compositions for the Church are the highest achievement of the 16th century.
You will read in many histories of music that Palestrina was asked to write three masses to be sung before a group of Cardinals, in order to find out whether or not any composer could write music fit for the Church. These three masses were considered so fine, that he was claimed as the one who saved Church music. This would have been a great honor, but it did not happen, and was only a legend to show Palestrina’s greatness. No doubt Palestrina wrote more carefully and beautifully on account of the decision of the Council of Trent, and was so great a composer that all vocal polyphonic music of the 16th century is said to be in the “Palestrinian” style.
Now this Palestrina was Giovanni Pierluigi, born in a humble home at Palestrina, a suburb of Rome. In English his name would be John Pierluigi of Palestrina. The year of his birth was about 1525 or 1526. He probably was a choir boy and was trained in music in one of the churches of Rome. You may hear that the Chapel master of Santa Marie Maggiore heard him singing on the road and picked him out for his music school, but this may be only one of many legends told of him. Even the name of his teacher is uncertain, some say that it was Goudimel, others that it was Gaudio or Claudio Mell, and still others that it was Cimello. However, his teacher’s name seems to have had the letters “mel” in it, and all the rest is guess work. Before he was twenty, he played the organ in a church at Palestrina, sang in the daily service, taught singing and music, and shortly after was married.
In 1551 he became chapel master in the Capella Giulia (Julia Chapel) in the Vatican. His first published volume of five masses (1554) he dedicated to the Pope, Julius III. There had been many volumes of sacred music dedicated to the popes, but they had always been the work of musicians of the northern school, Hollanders or Belgians. This volume of Palestrina’s was the first by an Italian composer to be written for a pope. As a reward, the Pope made him one of the twenty-four singers of his private chapel, but not having a good voice, and not being a priest, the next Pope dismissed him. But in 1571 he was again made chapel master in the Vatican.
It was the custom in those days for musicians to dedicate works not only to popes, but to rich and powerful nobles, monarchs, or other church officials. These attentions were often rewarded with gifts of money, positions at court or in the chapels. This “patronage,” as it was called, made it possible for composers to do their best work. This was not only the case in music, but in poetry, painting and sculpture. Palestrina was kept busy dedicating his music to popes, for he lived during the reigns of at least twelve.
After the Council of Trent, one of his masses was recommended as a model, so it is said, of what church music should be. He was again granted the pay of singer in the Pontifical Choir, as he had been years before, but this time, due to his well-known skill, he did not lose his post when other popes succeeded in office. Many of his masses in manuscript are now in the Vatican library.
In 1575, fifteen hundred singers from Palestrina,—priests, laymen, boys and women, marched into Rome singing Giovanni Pierluigi’s music, with the great composer leading them. This shows, that he was appreciated.
He was asked to revise some of the old church music and while he tried, he so hated to change the work of other composers whom he respected, that he never finished the task. It was like asking Stravinsky to put up-to-date harmonies into Beethoven.
A list of his compositions published by Breitkopf and Haertel include 93 Masses, 179 Motets, and 45 Hymns for the year, 68 Offertories, 3 books of Lamentations, 3 books of Litanies, 2 books of Magnificats, 4 books of Madrigals. A big list, isn’t it? But his activities covered a long period, and he composed to the time of his death (1594).
He had very few pupils whose names have come down to us.
Palestrina never had great wealth, and some biographers make him seem poverty-stricken and suffering. At any rate, he was granted his heart’s desire, to compose as much as he wanted to, and even if he was poor, he had the joy of success and the glory of being recognized as the greatest composer of his time in Italy. His works have outlived many other schools of composition, and today are looked upon as models of beauty and of masterly workmanship.
Palestrina was honored by burial in St. Peter’s, and on his tombstone are the words “Princeps Musicæ” (Prince of Music).
You must not think that Palestrina was the only famous Italian composer of the 16th century, for Constanza Festa who died before Palestrina did his important work is called the first Italian master of the polyphonic school. There were also Animuccia, Andrea Gabrieli, and Andrea’s nephew Giovanni Gabrieli. Giovanni was a Venetian, and the Venetians loved rich coloring in everything, even in their music. Gabrieli tried to get it by using cornets, trombones and violins with the organ, which at that time could not make a crescendo, that is, its volume could not be increased, but as these instruments could all be played soft or loud with crescendo effects, he created a color or quality that never had been before.