Toronto Chamber Choir Blog

A word from Artistic Director Lucas Harris:

I’m greatly looking forward to Christmas in the Eternal City, the TCC’s new holiday program, which will take place on Saturday, December 7 at 7:30 p.m. The concert will feature sublime and joyful Christmas music from the so-called “Roman School” of composers from the 16th century. The concert’s pièce de resistance will be the Missa Hodie Christus natus est à 8, a gorgeous work for double choir by Giovanni da Palestrina. The TCC singers will be delivering this work from opposing balconies at Calvin Presbyterian Church (26 Delisle Ave, Toronto, ON M4V 1S5.) What fun it will be to hear the group make this sort of stereophonic sound!

Palestrina is celebrated as one of the greatest musical masters of the Renaissance. But some have suggested this reputation is somewhat overblown, and that he was apotheosized as a sort of “golden boy” of the Counter-Reformation. Some have marveled at the ethereal melodicism and technical perfection of his music while others have described it as “basic” or even “bland.” Yet my impression after beginning TCC rehearsals on the Missa Hodie Christus natus est is that Palestrina’s music is both technically perfect as well as highly expressive. I realized that I don’t know enough about this monumental giant of Renaissance music.
In part because his 500th birth year is approaching in 2025, I wanted to dig through some preconceptions and myths about Palestrina and get closer to the core of who he was and what his music represents. Please enjoy this list of things you likely don’t know about him!
And don’t forget to reserve your concert tickets at our website at

https://torontochamberchoir.ca/e-registration/18/dec7
Warmly,
Lucas
________________________________________

12 Fun Facts About Palestrina
1.    “Palestrina” is the name of an Italian city about 35 km East of Rome (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina must surely be its most famous resident!) The city was built upon the ancient city of Praeneste, and contains loads of ancient artifacts (When Allied bombs during WWII destroyed Palestrina’s city centre, it revealed the remains of a temple.)
2.    The most notable composers working in 16th-century Rome were foreigners – Spanish or Flemish. One of these, the great Orlande de Lassus, accompanied Palestrina in his early years and played an important role in the formation of his style. Palestrina may have been uniquely positioned as one of the only native-born composers in Rome who carried on the excellence of Lassus and others.
3.    The man was incredibly prolific! He left more than 300 motets, 72 hymns, 35 magnificats, 11 litanies, 68 offertories and 105 masses (in this woodcut below, he is presenting his masses to Pope Julius III).

Though he’s not known for his secular music, he left at least 140 madrigals.
4.    The Easter hymn The Strife is O’er, the Battle Done is based on a melody from Palestrina’s Magnificat tertii toni.
5.    In three separate plague outbreaks in the 1570s, Palestrina lost his wife Lucrezia as well as his brother and two of his sons.
6.    He considered becoming a priest after this tragedy, but instead married a wealthy widow called Virginia Dormoli. The financial independence resulting from this match gave him the means to compose prolifically until his death and also to publish his works.
7.    Although we associate the polychoral style with Venice, and Palestrina as the central representative of the Roman School of composers, he composed much music for multiple choirs, including the Missa Hodie Christus natus est, which will be featured on our Dec. 7 concert.  This “parody mass” uses the composer’s own music (the motet Hodie Christus natus est) as the basis for each mass movement.
8.    The so-called “Palestrina Style” was codified by Johann Joseph Fux in his Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), which was used as the basis for contrapuntal training into the 19th century and beyond. The guidelines of the style included the idea that vocal lines should contain few leaps between notes, and that when a leap does occur it is balanced by stepwise motion in the opposite direction.
9.    Palestrina’s music was “rediscovered” in the 19th century, when it became a symbol of the so-called ars perfecta of Renaissance polyphony. An 1828 monograph reinforced the existing legend of Palestrina as the “Saviour of Church Music” vis-à-vis the reforms of the Council of Trent (1545-1563).
10.    This legend has it that Palestrina composed his famous Missa Papae Marcelli to dissuade the Council of Trent from enacting a ban on polyphonic text treatment, by showing that polyphony could be both beautiful and intelligible. As it turns out, he composed the piece before the cardinals convened to discuss the possibility of such a ban.
11.    J.S. Bach studied and copied Palestrina’s first book of masses, and wrote his own adaptation of the Kyrie and Gloria of the Missa sine nomine in 1742. Bach performed that work while writing his famous Mass in B minor.
12.    During his lifetime, Palestrina was called Princeps Musicae. This epithet gave the title to a 2009 Italian/German film called Palestrina – Prince of Music (which I’m putting on my holiday watch list!).