What is Missa Papae Marcelli?
? Missa Papae Marcelli, or Pope Marcellus Mass, is a mass sine nomine by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It is his best-known mass, and is regarded as an archetypal example of the complex polyphony championed by Palestrina.
Who wrote the mass of Pope Marcellus?
Pope Marcellus Mass. Written By: Pope Marcellus Mass, Latin Missa Papae Marcelli, mass by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the best known of his more than 100 masses. Published in 1567, the work is renowned for its intricate interplay of vocal lines and has been studied for centuries as a prime example of Renaissance polyphonic choral music.
Who wrote the Massa Papae Marcelli in the Baroque era?
Their Masses have been reprinted by Hermann J. Busch, Giovanni Francesco Anerio and Francesco Soriano: Two Settings of Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, Vol. XVI (Madison, 1973).
Who wrote the mass of St Agnes?
This mass was written by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina around 1567. Fitting to the epoch this mass is mostly polyphonic, nevertheless, one can find a few more classical sounding features in it as well. It is separated into the traditionally used parts of the mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei.

When did Palestrina compose Missa Marcelli?
1562Palestrina wrote this mass most likely in 1562 to honor the late Pope Marcellus II, who reigned for 3 weeks during 1555.
Why was Missa Papae Marcelli composed?
The mass was composed in honor of Pope Marcellus II, who reigned for three weeks in 1555. Recent scholarship suggests the most likely date of composition is 1562, when it was copied into a manuscript at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
What genre is Missa Papae Marcelli?
Choral - SacredMissa Papae Marcelli, "Pope Marcellus Mass": KyrieComposersMass Text Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi daGenresChoral - SacredPerformersOxford CamerataConductorsJeremy SummerlyLabelNaxos
What is the main purpose of the Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass during the time of reformation?
It is rumored that Palestrina composed this mass to prove that polyphonic music could still have understandable text, thus "saving" polyphony. While it is unlikely that this particular work "saved" polyphony in the church, the piece definitely conforms to the rules set by the council in the counter-reformation.
What is the texture of Pope Marcellus Mass?
In the Latin mass those include the “Kyrie,” “Gloria,” “Credo,” “Sanctus” (sometimes divided into the “Sanctus” and “Benedictus”), and “Agnus Dei.” In each movement, Palestrina tended to use both imitative polyphonic textures and homophonic ones; in the latter he combined a straightforward single melody with an ...
What is the texture of Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli Kyrie?
He composed Missa Papae Marcelli. The texture of this setting of the Mass Ordinary. Although this piece is polyphonic, it demonstrates the potential for achieving this with its simple, well-balanced counterpoint.
What is the tempo of Pope Marcellus Mass?
Song Metrics Missa Papae Marcelli, "Pope Marcellus Mass": Kyrie is a very sad song by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina with a tempo of 61 BPM. It can also be used double-time at 122 BPM. The track runs 4 minutes and 38 seconds long with a A key and a major mode.
How many movements does Missa Papae Marcelli have?
seven movementsThe Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli is in seven movements. The Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei 1 & II represent the highest achievement of Palestrina's serene, flowing, spiritually elevated style.
For what voices or instruments were madrigals written?
Madrigals were originally published for professional singers and for amateur singers of high standard. They were issued not in score, as is the 20th-century custom, but in the form of part books, each one of which contained only the music necessary for one line—soprano, alto, tenor, bass, or any intermediate voice.
Why is Palestrina's mass pope Marcellus connected to the Counter-Reformation movement?
What role did Palestrina's Masses play in the Counter-Reformation? They provided an important model for the polyphonic music subsequent generations of church composers.
How many voice parts are required to seeing the Pope Marcellus Mass?
The Pope Marcellus Mass was written for six voice parts. Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass is a setting of the Mass Ordinary. During the Renaissance, the Mass was recited and sung in the vernacular (the language of the people).
What is the five main section of mass?
The Ordinary consists of five parts: Kyrie (Lord have mercy upon us….), Gloria (Glory be to thee….), Credo (I believe in God the Father….), Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy….) and Agnus Dei (O Lamb of God…). The words of the mass that are not from the Ordinary are called the Proper.
What is the harmony of Pope Marcellus Mass Gloria?
Gloria from Pope Marcellus Mass was composed by Palestrina as a sacred choral work performed purely in 6-part choirs including a soprano, an alto, two tenors, and a bass. Its texture is mixed mostly by homorhythmic and particular parts of polyphony.
What are the words of the Kyrie in the Pope Marcellus Mass?
To see how this music worked, we will consider the Kyrie and the Credo. These are the most disparate movements of the Mass. The Kyrie has the shortest text: It translates in its entirety to “Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.” The text is also unusual because it is in Greek, not Latin.
What is the tempo of Pope Marcellus Mass?
Song Metrics Missa Papae Marcelli, "Pope Marcellus Mass": Kyrie is a very sad song by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina with a tempo of 61 BPM. It can also be used double-time at 122 BPM. The track runs 4 minutes and 38 seconds long with a A key and a major mode.
Which of the following is an accurate description of the music of Palestrina?
According to Fux, Palestrina had established and followed these basic guidelines: The flow of music is dynamic, not rigid or static. Melody should contain few leaps between notes. (Jeppesen: "The line is the starting point of Palestrina's style".)
Style
The Missa Papae Marcelli consists, like most Renaissance masses, of a Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus / Benedictus, and Agnus Dei, though the Agnus Dei is in two parts rather than the common three. The mass is freely composed, not based upon a cantus firmus or parody.
History
The mass was composed in honor of Pope Marcellus II, who reigned for three weeks in 1555. Recent scholarship suggests the most likely date of composition is 1562, when it was copied into a manuscript at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
What is the Marcellus?
The Marcellus is a musical setting of the so-called Ordinary of the mass—that is, the texts that remain constant throughout the annual church calendar. In the Latin mass those include the “Kyrie,” “Gloria,” “Credo,” “Sanctus” (sometimes divided into the “Sanctus” and “Benedictus”), and “Agnus Dei.”. In each movement, Palestrina tended ...
Why did the Council of Trent convene?
In the mid-16th century the Roman Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent to consider adjustments to church policy in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. One element focused on ensuring that the words of any sacred music should be readily understandable and not obscured by musical elaboration. Although Palestrina’s mass makes much use of polyphony —setting several different musical layers against one another simultaneously—he shows a clear preference for “imitative” polyphony, in which the basic melodies and, thus, their words are stated clearly in a single voice before the other layers are gradually added. This technique—most colloquially familiar as the technique used in the nursery song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”—promoted understanding of the words from the outset.
How many voices are in Palestrina?
Palestrina’s choir of six voice parts— soprano, alto, tenor (in two parts), baritone, and bass —is deftly managed for maximum effect, with much interplay between the voices. At the time the piece was written, boy choristers sang the soprano and alto voices, and the entire mass was sung a cappella (without instrumental accompaniment).
When was Palestrina published?
Published in 1567, the work is renowned for its intricate interplay of vocal lines and has been studied for centuries as a prime example of Renaissance polyphonic choral music. Palestrina first went to the Vatican at the behest of Pope Julius III, for whom he composed a great quantity of sacred music, both short works and mass settings.
Who recorded Pope Marcellus Mass?
Full Article. “Sanctus” from Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass; from a 1954 recording by the Nederlands Kamerkoor conducted by Felix de Nobel. Pope Marcellus Mass, Latin Missa Papae Marcelli, mass by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the best known of his more than 100 masses. Published in 1567, the work is renowned ...
Who was Pope Marcellus?
Pope Marcellus Mass was named for the composer’s second papal employer, Marcellus II, who was pope for less than a month in 1555. Palestrina did not complete the mass until about 1561. In the mid-16th century the Roman Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent to consider adjustments to church policy in the wake of the Protestant Reformation.
Who was Giovanni da Palestrina?
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Italian Renaissance composer of more than 105 masse s and 250 motets, a master of contrapuntal composition. Palestrina lived…
Why was Missa Papae Marcelli written?
The Council of Trent, a gathering of the Catholic world which took place in the middle of the sixteenth century, was convened to discuss responses to the movement of Protestant reform sweeping across the continent. Many delegates felt that secular music was an inappropriate model, and that words had become unintelligible. Legend has it that the Missa Papae Marcelli was written to prove that polyphony could fulfil these requirements. The Agnus Dei is classic Palestrina, a seamless and smooth polyphony. Romantic legend has it that, because of the clarity with which Palestrina treated the text, with this mass he ‘saved church music’
Who was the most important composer of the late 16th century?
He was primarily a prolific composer of masses and motets but was also an important madrigalist. Among the native Italian musicians of the 16th century who sought to assimilate the richly developed polyphonic techniques of their French and Flemish predecessors, none mastered these techniques more completely
What is the nature of the unity suggested here?
What is the nature of the unity suggested here? Not that of Classic-Romantic music with its specialized thematic functions, 41 yet it has more than a little in common with Schumann's Carnaval and its persistent reworking of a small group of notes. It lacks the formal thematic ordering of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music because in sixteenth-century music that kind of order resides in the text—which must take priority over even a cantus prius factus. Have we been assaying fool's gold, melodic parallels which emerge only when we examine their contours from too close a perspective? Possibly one has to step back from Renaissance melody and consider it in the larger dimension. It may well prove that many of the resemblances we have called thematic (for want of a better term) are really no more than details of lower levels of the thematic process. Even so, the persistence of such details must reveal something about the economy and coherence of the language of the Mass; if not about its overall organization, then surely about the vocabulary in which those larger dimension thematic structures are couched. The unity of this deeper level illuminates those qualities of poise and propriety which set the Missa Papae Marcelli apart even in the œuvre of a Palestrina.
What is the structural equivalence of the motivic family KI/1?
Even without a formal descriptive table, the structural equivalence of the motivic family KI/1 impresses itself on every ear. It embodies the unity one expects to hear in a point of imitation. It maintains that unity throughout the first fifteen measures in spite of varying continuations and truncations as drastic as those at 2/a and 10/s. The variety of these motives seems quite conservative when compared with the closing point of the Christe, family KII/32 (Tables 2 and 3).
What is the point that a composer "wresteth" must sometimes alter its shape to fit the demands of?
The point that a composer "wresteth" must sometimes alter its shape to fit the demands of the other voices. 23 Because the original point and its derivative participate in the same discourse, that association implies a functional equivalence between them. As our ears tell us, the derivative can represent the original idea in an appropriate musical context. Thus we may assume that the different forms of the opening subject of the Missa Papae Marcelli, KI/1 (see key to the tables) are functionally equivalent in that opening point. Table 1 groups those forms according to their transpositions as dux, comes, and resultant (a term chosen arbitrarily to identify further transposition of the subject). 24
How many triadic melodies are there in Table 16?
Table 16 compares five triadic melodies which have similar terminations, and adds three more which may perhaps belong to the same family.
What is the significance of KI/1?
The prominent placement and significant imitation of KI/1 grant it an importance which, as a cliché of sixteenth-century style, it might not have attained in some other context. The same may be said of KII/32 and its consequents which form a rhythmic and imitative embellishment of a somewhat bare melodic cadence. But for all their commonplace character, the two families, KI/1 and KII/32, have that stepwise fall from g to c (and c to g) in common. Does the end of the Christe then, make thematic reference to the beginning of the Kyrie? Or does the ubiquity of the short descending scale fragment oblige us to ignore its strategic placement and to ascribe the similarity to coincidence.
How many measures of Gloria are there?
A somewhat more flexible kind of line development unites the last 28 measures of the Gloria (see Table 10).
How many variations does the subject there have?
The subject there, a seemingly colorless fall from g to c (and c to g in comes ), incorporates 11 different continuations and half-a-dozen variant beginnings into its domain, and raises a basic question about its thematic intent.