Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli
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Edition Eulenburg No. 963 PALESTRINA MISSA PAPAE MARCELLI Eulenburg GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA MISSA PAPAE MARCELLI for 6–7 Voices für 6–7 Stimmen Edited by/Herausgegeben von Arnold Schering Ernst Eulenburg Ltd London · Mainz · Madrid · New York · Paris · Prague · Tokyo · Toronto · Zürich CONTENTS Preface . III Vorwort . VII Text . XII 1. Kyrie (a 6) . 1 2. Gloria in excelsis Deo (a 6) . 8 Qui tollis (a 6) . 12 3. Credo in unum Deum (a 6) . 18 Crucifixus (a 4) . 24 Et in Spiritum Sanctum (a 6) . 26 4. Sanctus (a 6) . 33 Hosanna in excelsis (a 6) . 38 Benedictus (a 4) . 40 5. Agnus Dei I (a 6) . 43 Agnus Dei II (a 7) . 48 © 2010 Ernst Eulenburg & Co GmbH, Mainz for Europe excluding the British Isles Ernst Eulenburg Ltd, London for all other countries All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher: Ernst Eulenburg Ltd 48 Great Marlborough Street London W1F 7BB PREFACE Palestrina’s Missarum Liber Secundus, printed Marcellus II. Marcellus himself was elected to at Rome in 1567, comprises three groups of the papacy during Holy Week of 1555, and works printed in this order: 4 Masses a4, 2 reigned for just 20 days. It is recorded that Masses a5, and finally the Missa Papae Marcelli Marcellus was displeased at the inappropriate a6. The title-page reads: and perfunctory performance of the liturgy that he witnessed in the Sistine Chapel on Good Ioannis Petri Aloysi[i] Prae/nestini Missarum Li/ber Secundus/Cum gratia et privilegio./ROMAE/Apud Friday, 12 April 1555 and subsequently ad- Haeredes Valerii et Aloysii Doricorum/fratrum Brix- dressed the Pontifical Choir – of which Palest- iensium./ANNO DOMINI. MDLXVII. rina himself was a member at this time – in these reported terms: The volume bears the overall dedication: Pontifex ipse, vocatis ad se cantoribus ipsis, eis ini- PHILIPPO AUSTRIACO/REGI CATHOLICO ET unxit, ut quae his diebus sanctis in misteriis passionis INVICTO et mortis Christi recitanda erant, ea rei condecen- Palestrina’s letter of dedication prefaces the tibus, vocibus referrent, atque etiam ita referent, ut volume with what amounts to a personal artistic quae proferrebantur, audiri atque percipi possent. and religious credo and which reads in part: The Pope himself, having summoned the singers to his presence, enjoined on them that whatever was […] Quapropter ego, qui tot annos in hac arte […] performed on those holy days when the mysteries of faciendum mihi putavi, ut gravissimorum, et religio- the Passion and Death of Christ were celebrated, sissimorum hominum secutus consilium, ad rem in must be sung in a suitable manner, with properly christiana religione omnium maximam, et divinissi- modulated voices, and so that everything could be mam, hoc est, sanctissimum Missae sacrificium novo both heard and understood properly.2 modorum genere decorandum, omne meum studium, operam, industriamque conferrem. Elaboravi ergo, It may have been in response to Marcellus’s re- quanta maxima potui cura has Missas ad Dei Opt. buke that Palestrina later resolved to ‘write a mass Max. cultum cohonestandum, a quo mihi munus hoc which should both honour the pope’s memory et beneficium, quantumque est, tributum, et impar- and conform to his liturgical ideal’.3 Marcellus’s titum agnosco. exhortation to his singers should not be consid- […] I, therefore, who have been engaged in this art ered in isolation but rather seen in the context for many years […] have considered it my task, in of a long-standing debate within the church accordance with the views of most serious and most concerning the role of music within the liturgy. religious-minded men, to bend all my knowledge, This debate centred on two main concerns: first, effort, and industry toward that which is the holiest the inappropriate use of secular material in works and most divine of all things in the Christian religion expressly composed for the liturgy and, in par- – that is, to adorn the holy sacrifice of the Mass in a ticular, the long tradition of constructing cantus new manner. I have, therefore, worked out these Masses with the greatest possible care, to do honour firmi based on soggetti taken from madrigals to the worship of almighty God, to which this gift, as and chansons; secondly, the inherent tendency small as it may be, is offered and accommodated.1 of polyphony to obscure the clear auditory The final Mass of the collection bears, in its 2 Angelo Massarelli, Diarium VII, in: Karl Weinmann, genitive title, a separate dedication to Pope Das Konzil von Trient und die Kirchenmusik (Leipzig, 1919), 148. Original Latin text quoted from Knud Jeppe- sen, The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance (Copen- hagen and Oxford, 1946), 45; English translation quoted 1 Translation quoted from: Lewis Lockwood, Palestrina: from Henry Coates, Palestrina (London, 1938), 41 Pope Marcellus Mass (New York, 1975), 22–3 3 Coates, op.cit., 41 IV transmission, and thus the intelligibility, of the Giovanni Palestrina found the remedy [as he himself sacred text itself. demonstrated in] the mass entitled Missa Papae When the Council of Trent, during its final Marcelli.6 sessions 1562-3, came to consider the role of This passage was translated into German by music in religious services its recommenda- Praetorius in his Syntagma Musicum, III (1619) tions – amounting, perhaps surprisingly, to no and was thus directly responsible for establishing more than 15 words – are contained within the the Palestrina legend in Germany and Northern single decree, dated 17 September 1562, ‘con- Europe. It has been suggested that the Palestri- cerning the things to be observed and avoided nan legend may itself be regarded as a variant of in the celebration of the mass’: that favoured Reniassance-humanist subject, the Ab ecclesiis vero musicas eas, ubi sive organo sive myth of Orpheus, demonstrating the magical cantu lascivum aut impurum aliquid miscetur. power of music and Orpheus’ role as ‘the fa- ther of song’ as recorded in Pindar.7 Let them keep away from the churches compositions in which there is an intermingling of the lascivious The ‘new manner’ announced in Palestrina’s or impure, whether by instrument or voice.4 preface is manifest in the Missa Papae Marcelli above all in its exemplary treatment of the sung It was against this background of music’s widely- text: perceived negative role within the liturgy that the enduring legend of the Missa Papae Mar- Not only the beginnings of phrases, but all words which are of dogmatic importance (see especially celli being expressly written and published as the Gloria and Credo) are set in such a way that any a compositional paradigm was born. misunderstanding on the part of the listener is out of The earliest-known claim that Palestrina, the question. Where individual words are of less im- through the Missa Papae Marcelli, was ‘instru- portance (for example the Sanctus, Benedictus, and mental in saving sacred music from banishment Agnus Dei) complex polyphony and even canonic from use in Catholic churches’5 is recorded in writing comes into its own.8 an early-17th-century figured bass manual by That contrapuntal complexity is not absent from Agostino Agazzari: Palestrina’s ‘new manner’ may be seen, for [...] poiché cantandosi a tutte le voci, non si sente ne example, in the Agnus Dei II, in which a most periodo, ne senso; essendo per le fughe interrotto e elegantly conceived canon 3 in 1 is embedded sopraposto; anzi nel medesimo tempo ogni voce within the 7-part polyphonic texture, thus pro- canta parole differenti dall’altro; il che a gl’ huomini viding a fitting conclusion to this monumental intendenti e giudicosi dispiace et poco mancò, che work by applying that long-sought ‘knowledge, per questa cagione non fosse sbandita la Musica da S. Chiesa, da un sommo Pontefice, se da Giovan effort, and industry’ of which Palestrina de- Palestrino non fosse stato preso riparo, mostrando clares in his preface. d’esser vitio, ed errore de’ compositori, e non della It has been suggested that Palestrina himself Musica; ed a confermatione di questo fece la Messa may have regarded the Missa Papae Marcelli intitolata: Missa Papae Marcelli. as a demonstration piece and that it is ‘evident that Palestrina himself was conscious of the pe- […] the confusion and babel of the words [in poly- phonic sacred music], arising from the long and culiar character of this style from the expres- intricate imitations [so that] at every moment, each sion “novo modorum genere”’ announced in voice has different words [and that] on this account music would have come very near to being banished 6 Agostino Agazzari, Del sonare sopra ‘l basso con tutti li stromenti (Siena, 1607); translation quoted from Oliver from Holy Church by a sovereign pontiff had not Strunk, Source Readings in Music History (New York, 1950), 430 4 Translation quoted from, Craig A.Monson, ‘The Council 7 Pindar, Pythian, iv.177 of Trent Revisited’, in: Journal of the American Musico- 8 Arnold Schering (ed.), Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli, logical Society, Vol.55/1 (Spring, 2002), 11 preface to the original Eulenburg edition (Leipzig, 1923), 5 Lockwood, op.cit., 29 iii V the dedication.9 Jeppesen’s acute analysis and halved; the few accidentals in the 1567 print appreciation of Palestrina’s style may be are placed before the notes affected; editorial quoted here by way of conclusion: accidentals are placed in round brackets; the music has been barred editorially throughout. The problem [for Palestrina in composing the Missa Papae Marcelli] was not only how to bring out the All phrasal slurs are editorial additions.