Your thoughts on Palestrina

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I fond that Palestrina and other kinds of church music feel more like concrete music than church music. I don’t really like such music at mass.
Gregorian Requem is my favourite.
What do you think? It would be interesting hearing what the musicians think.
Also, the words are much clearer in Gregorian chant.
I agree with a church musician who explained that the Kyrie is never about beautiful melodies but prayer from the heart.we are to pray like the guy in Mark 10.
What do you think?
My favourite music has always had simple melodies.
And why do you think the church started using Palestrina at Mäss?
 
I wish I heard Palestrina at Mass. We just get stuff out of “JourneySongs”.
 
In the order of church music, Palestrina and renaissance polyphony has beeen put on almost equal terms with Gregorian chant in the tradition of church music. (See Pius X’s moto proprio). Vatican II also exalts chant and polyphony. Palestrina’s music is closely related to and based off of the chant that came before it. I find it much better and more sacred than some of the complex and indecipherable orchestral music that was coming out at the time.

Could you explain what you mean by “concrete music”?
 
Polyphony started being used in liturgical music during the Renaissance. Other liturgical composers from that era include Tallis, Allegri, and Gabrieli. It’s my favorite setting of music at Mass aside from Gregorian chant and Slavic chant.
 
Sorry…I tried to write “Concert music” but I have dumb auto-correction.
 
I like the “raw” Gregorian melodies.
Palestrina is in my opinion a Way for the choir leader to show off how good his Singers are.
I want down-to-earth kinda music eg Gregorian or carthusian chant.
I mean, I have never been fond of big orchesteral pieces but a big fan of solo piano music. I also dont like big church but I like smaller churches.
Guess that is why Palestrina doesnt suit me. What do you think?
 
I’m sorry to say I’ve never had the chance to be present at a live performance of the Missa Papae Marcelli, either in a church or a concert hall. I only know it from recordings. A live performance, particularly as part of the celebration of Holy Mass, must be an unforgettable experience.
 
Kyrie eleison is never about beautiful music?

Hmmmmmm 🤔

Kyrie: Orbis Factor…such beauty and reverence…I just feel my spirit, mind and body elevating while listening.

 
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Oh, concert music! That makes much more sense.

Palestrina was composing almost entirely sacred music meant for the Mass. So I would disagree that Palestrina is “concert music.” I like to think of it as more of chant with polyphonic harmony. A lot of the stuff being composed at the time was really showy and complicated, more like concert music, as you were mentioning. The Council of Trent tried to reign this in and consequently adopted Palestrina as a model, as his music was simpler and more appropriate for the Liturgy. As a result, Palestrina is held in high esteem by the Church.

Of course, if you’re not the biggest fan of Palestrina, that’s fine. Everyone has their own tastes.
 
Wow…yeah…I mean…such a Good point you made there. I guess the church musician I refered to was saying that we shouldnt be to concerned with beautiful melodies but rather with asking for mercy. And in my opinion the example from Youtube is still down to Earth.
 
It is not music that grew out of the liturgi but music made for the liturgy if I was told correctly.
I attended all souls mass. The Priest Walked up to the altar and then the music started or maybe it even started while he was walking up to the altar. It wasnt Palestrina but something that grew from that tradition. It felt like a concert. It really made me upset. They should have sung the real Requiem introitus.
It felt like a concert. It really did. Have you ever experienced this?
The Priest I talked to about this told me that he ptefered mass without any music. I guess I am somwhere in between him and the Palestrina fans on this forum.
I guess I want the old beloved plainchant or organum. For a concert I rather have a solo piano than a full orchestra. I have a psyciactriatic diagnosis which has to do with things like not liking big crowded places. It seems big cathedrals or big music is also not a favourite. Maybe there is a corelletation.
 
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Do you know who the composer is for the Introit that you heard? I’d like to listen to it. I’ve sung Palestrina’s requiem introit and it is quite nice and somber.
 
IIRC, Palestrina was part of the Counter-Reformation. See, what had been happening was that sacred music had been becoming increasingly polyphonic and sometimes there were multiple texts involved. (Ex. a motet called O mitissima/Virgo/Haec dies.) This made it hard to understand the words. One of the ideals of the Counter-Reformation was to make the music more understandable. Palestrina assisted in this regard.

(I studied music history as a teen and went over it again a couple of years ago with my kid. We studied Palestrina and the Pope Marcellus Mass.)
 
I’m a musician (piano/organ).

Palestrina’s music is difficult for even skilled music readers. I’ve accompanied a very good school choir that tried to learn a Palestrina Mass, but gave it up after several months or work (once a week practices). It was just really tough going for them. It didn’t help that there were only a few tenors and only a few altos, and the altos were pretty weak at reading music.

I think that if a group of very skilled singers with excellent music reading ability and an equal number of sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses worked on it with a skilled accompanist and director, and there were no “weak links” in that group of singers, they could pull it off.

The score that we were using was also difficult for me to play, but that could be because of a piano that was in terrible shape with several missing notes.

My opinion is that Palestrina’s pieces are not likely to be sung by the average parish volunteer choir.

I also think that Palestrina’s music is not as easy to listen to as someone like Bach or Buxtehude. There’s something about the polyphony that sounds different–some clashes and some motion that seems odd to me. But it’s probably because I wasn’t raised on it like I was raised on Bach! 🙂
 
BlueMaxx said:
Kyrie: Orbis Factor…such beauty and reverence…I just feel my spirit, mind and body elevating while listening.
Click to expand...
The irony about the piece you posted is that it was banned at the Council of Trent, which abolished all troped Kyries! The various melodies of the Kyriale in the current and pre-Conciliar Graduale Romanum all have a title under the heading. This one, Orbis Factor, is Kyrie XI, in the Graduale, but without the tropes. Those titles were the last vestiges of the troped Kyries like the one you posted.

Even more ironic is that Vatican II now allows troped Kyries again; in fact it is one of the choices for the penitential rite. So while the troped Kyrie you posted was illicit from Trent to before Vatican II, it would now be licit to use it again as it conforms to the format of one of the options for the penitential rite.

As for Palestrina, I doubt I’ll ever hear it at any Mass around here, but at the abbey I’m attached to as an oblate, Mass is in Gregorian chant (in the Ordinary Form) every day, with Latin propers and Latin/Greek ordinary, and the rest in French plainchant. Very reverent and beautiful. And since I also sing in a Gregorian schola on a regular basis, I think you can guess where my sympathies lie.

You can never go wrong with the lyrics of Gregorian chant. For the most part, they are psalm and other Bible verses.
 
Why is it hard? As a musician myself I find that simple tunes can be the hardest to play well.
Some tunes that are difficult are obviously not even playable for me. It is always interesting to hear a great pianist struggling with getting a simple piece right when a simple man can do it.
Not many People can sing Gregorian chants correcty (maybe correcty pitch but without feeling). Simple folks seem best at it. Opera Singer strugle. I have heard opera singer doing it but it does sound a bit weird.
I like more “Simple” music. I am no fan of virtouso music. Is Palestrina virtouso music?
 
Opera singers struggle, their voices are too strong for Gregorian chant and they end up dominating. Gregorian is meant to be “una voce”, that is, the entire choir/schola must blend their voices so no one voice stands out and all sing as one voice. That is the trick to Gregorian, and what makes it difficult is that Gregorian, apart from some Divine Office hymns, is not metered so one has to really pay close attention to the rhythmic signs in the score (dots, repercussions and episema mostly, that say when to lengthen or modulate a note). Singing on-pitch is one thing, singing on-pitch all at the same time is another. If one voice is off, it ends up sounding like cacophony. Blending voices is the single most important thing our schola works on after getting the melody right.

We have an opera singer oblate, who would try to psalmody with the monks but they had to ask him to stop because his voice dominated so much and it made blending voices properly almost impossible.
 
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