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Palestrina watching Pope Paul IV slopping ketchup on his Melanzane alla Parmigiana

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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 - 1594)
"The Saviour of Music"

Palestrina was (if you believe the story) in the right place at the right time. The Council of Trent (1545-63) had decided, along with generally damning anything Protestant, that music in the Catholic church should be spiritless and depressing, so as not to interfere with penitence. According to legend, after a particularly draconian Pope, who had fired Palestrina for being too entertaining, died, a more progressive Pope asked him to write something good (but not so good as to be impure or anything). Palestrina produced a now iconic polyphonic mass, with clean, singable lines and smooth, uncomplicated harmonies, and named it after the Pope who came before the one who fired him in the first place. And thus began Palestrina's career as the greatest Catholic composer of the Renaissance, and the "Saviour of Music." This is what can happen when a career church musician is willing to make a few minor adjustments.

 

​O Magnum Mysterium

 

As a result, Palestrina's arrangement of the responsorial chant from the Matins of Christmas is a simple, but masterful polyphonic word painting, and just straight-up delicious; tonal, logical comfort food for seasoned choristers. Most of the voices sing the same syllables on the same beats, and dissonances are in brief passing, or as suspensions that create engaging - but not too engaging - moments of anticipation, like the brief pause before a first sip of morning coffee, or the hang-time on a three-pointer in a regular season game.

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Bel Canto Fredericton
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