The Music of the Reformation

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The Music of the Reformation

• Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses
  (complaints about the Catholic Church) to a
  church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517
• The result was the Lutheran Church, the first
  Protestant denomination

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Martin Luther

• singer and composer, and admired the music of
  Josquin des Prez
• believed in the ethical power of music and wanted
  the entire congregation to participate

3
The German Mass

• Luther first published his German Mass in 1526
• Simplified
• Texts were in sometimes in German, and recitation
  formulas were adapted to the German language

4
The Lutheran Chorale

• Strophic congregational hymn (chorale or
  Kirchenlied, church song)
• Originally monophonic, for unison congregational
  singing
• Often also arranged for four voice parts
• Luther himself wrote many texts and some
  melodies, for example, the text of Ein' feste
  Burg ist unser Gott, 1529
• contrafacta of secular songs
• Luther's musical collaborator Johann Walter
  (14961570)

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The Chorale Motet

• Protestant
• Polyphonic
• German

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Calvinist churches

• Founded by Jean Calvin (15091564)
• Prohibited the singing of texts not found in the
  Bible
• Translated psalms into the vernacular and set
  them to metrical rhymes
• Set the psalms to newly composed or borrowed
  melodies
• 4 parts

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The French Psalter

• Psalter was published in 1562 for Calvinist
  churches
• 4-part psalm settings

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Bohemia

• Jan Hus (13731415)
• banishment of polyphony and instrumental music
• Czech Brethren were later called the Moravian
  Brethren
• Moravians emigrated to America, especially
  Pennsylvania, in the early eighteenth century

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England in the Sixteenth Century

• John Taverner (ca. 14901545)
• greatest English musician of the early sixteenth
  century

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Anglican Church Music

• In 1534, the Church in England separated from the
  Roman Catholic Church
• Henry VIII broke with the church for political
  reasons
• At first there were no real changes to the
  liturgy
• English rite
• English instead of Latin
• The English Book of Common Prayer

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Service

• Replaced the Mass
• Anthem

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Catholic Music at the End of the Sixteenth Century

• The Counter-Reformation
• The Council of Trent met from 1545 to 1563
• Secular cantus firmi used as the basis for sacred
  works
• Complex polyphony made it impossible to
  understand the words
• Inappropriate behavior of church musicians
• Inappropriate use of instruments

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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 or
15261594)

• Educated and was a choirboy in Rome
• Was choirmaster at the Cappella Giula at St.
  Peter's 155154
• Sang in the pope's official chapel (Cappella
  Sistina)
• choirmaster and teacher at influential churches
  in Rome

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Palestrina and the Counter-Reformation

• Supervised the revision of the official
  chantbooks to bring them in line with the Council
  of Trent's orders
• A legend from the 1590s credits him with saving
  polyphony by composing a polyphonic Mass that
  incorporated Council of Trent Reforms, the Missa
  Papae Marcelli, published in 1567 (NAWM 47)

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Missa Papae Marcelli, 1567 (NAWM 47)

• Credo
• No imitation, for the sake of brevity and clear
  diction
• Uses a six-voice choir broken up into smaller
  groups
• All six voices used together only at important
  words
• Fauxbourdon-like passages
• Rhythmic accents to help reduce monotony (e.g.,
  in "Et unum Dominum")

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Missa Papae Marcelli, 1567 (NAWM 47)

• Agnus Dei
• Uses close imitation
• Each voice puts accents at different places

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Palestrinas music

• mostly sacred
• 104 Masses
• 250 motets
• 100 secular madrigals

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Palestrina's style

• usied all the techniques
• cantus firmus
• paraphrasing of a chant in all voice parts
• canon
• imitation

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Palestrina's style

• melodies move stepwise in an arched line
• triadic harmony and very little chromaticism
• Counterpoint follows Zarlino's rules (Le
  istitutioni harmoniche) closely
• Dissonances introduced in suspensions and
  resolved on strong beats
• Dissonances between beats allowed if the moving
  voice is doing so in a stepwise fashion
• Downward leap of a third, from a dissonance to a
  consonance (later called cambiata), also
  allowable
• natural rhythms of all the voices
• Text is comprehensible

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Spain

• Tomás Luis de Victoria (15481611)

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Tomás Luis de Victoria (15481611)

• Studied in Rome, possibly with Palestrina
• Worked at the Jesuit German College in Rome
  157177
• In 1587, returned to Spain to work in the chapel
  of the Empress Maria

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NAWM 48a, motet O magnum mysterium

• Text expresses the joy of the Christmas season
• Fugal opening is in Palestrina's style but with
  larger leaps

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Example NAWM 48b, Missa O magnum mysterium

• Kyrie
• Imitation Mass, which preserves the opening
  characteristics of the motet
• To create a fugue with two subjects, Victoria
  creates a second theme based on the main theme
• Freely invented material used for the Christe
  (typical of imitation Masses)
• Triadic harmony, similar to Palestrina's style,
  but with more use of perfect consonances for
  cadences

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Orlando di Lasso (15321594)

• One of the greatest composers of sacred music in
  the late sixteenth century
• Known for the high quality of his motets

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NAWM 49, Tristis est anima mea

• Published in the Magnus opus musicum (Great Work
  of Music), a collection of Orlandos motets

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NAWM 49, Tristis est anima mea

• Pictorial representations of the text, similar to
  madrigalist word-painting
• Phrases divided to reflect changes in meaning in
  the text
• Descending semitone representing sadness
  ("tristis")
• Circular melodic figure for the words
  "circumdabit me" (will encircle me)
• "vos fugam capietis" (you will take flight)
  represented with fugal subject that is repeated
  eleven times to represent the eleven disciples
  who ran away while Jesus was being beaten
• Note-against-note texture for important text, "et
  ego vadam immolari pro vobis" ("and I shall go to
  be sacrificed for you")

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William Byrd (15431623)

• Byrd was the last of the great Catholic Church
  composers of the sixteenth century
• Catholic all his life but worked for the royal
  family during both Catholic and Protestant
  periods
• He composed a few very fine Masses and many
  motets
• His Gradualia, two books of motets (1605, 1607),
  were published for Catholics who worshiped
  secretly after the official break with the
  Catholic church