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Modal representation in polyphonic offertories*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Harold S. Powers
Harold S. Powers
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

In 1957 Nino Pirrotta expressed his view of Palestrina's music and the Tridentine reforms as follows:

The composers were directed to avoid too open an intrusion of secular elements, and to preserve the comprehensibility of the text so far as possible. That the latter would have been attainable through the avoidance of canons and other developed contrapuntal procedures (Animuccia, preface to Laude, Libro ii, 1570) is only in part true, if the noteworthy complexity of Palestrina's polyphonic composition is taken into account. In fact the problem had to be solved more from the spiritual than from the purely technical side. The true contribution of Palestrina and some of his contemporaries (e.g. de Kerle and Animuccia) to its solution — dramatised in anecdotes which do not withstand historical criticism — consists in the deep and inner religiosity which his works unquestionably express. This religiosity, joined to the responsibility for interpreting the official attitude of the Church, influenced the style in that it led to extreme circumspection in taking up the new means of emphasis and expression, be it because they had arisen from secular music (above all after the rise of the madrigal) or because they seemed incompatible with the restraint becoming to the divine service (since they tended towards the description and expression of personal feelings).

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 2 , October 1982 , pp. 43 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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Footnotes

*

A complete listing of the publications of works by Palestrina and Lasso mentioned in this study may be found on pp. 84–6.

References

1 Pirrotta, N., ‘Italien’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Blume, F., 16 vols. (Kassel, 1949–1979), vi, col. 1499Google Scholar. The English version of this passage is mine, as is the case for all quotations from secondary literature in this essay. The bulk of the essay is an amplification of Pirrotta's observation by an account of the modal representations in Palestrina's offertory motets for the winter seasons, and an argument that they were intended as an affirmation of Counter-Reformation ideology. The essay is meant as a late restitution for my inability to provide a contribution on an Italian subject in time for vol. 10 (1975) of the Rivista Italiana di Miusicologia, issued in Professor Pirrotta's honour.

2 The text of Palestrina's dedicatory preface may be seen in Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Werke, ed. Haberl, F. X. and others, 33 vols. (Leipzig, 1862–1903), vol. 4Google Scholar, and also in Baini, Giuseppe, Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Rome, 1828), ii, pp. 139–40Google Scholar, with a free Italian translation. The following is my translation of the Latin:

‘Exceedingly many songs of the poets are on no theme other than that of loves alien to the name and profession of Christian. These very songs, by men carried away with passion and corrupters of youth, the majority of musicians have chosen as material for their art and industry – [musicians] who, however much they have flourished from the renown of their genius, have as much offended among honest and serious men by the immorality of their material. I blush and grieve to have been among their number. But since the past can never be changed, nor things already done rendered undone, I have changed my views. And therefore I have before this worked on those songs which had been written in praise of Our Lord Jesus Christ and his most holy mother the Virgin Mary [Palestrina was obviously referring to his first book of spiritual madrigals with its two ballate grandi, on Our Lord and on the Holy Spirit, and the modal cycle of eight stanzas from Petrarch's canzone on the Virgin]. And at this time I have chosen the Songs of Solomon, which unquestionably contain the divine love of Christ and his spouse, the [human] soul. I have used a style without objection’ (p. 178). With Baini, I believe Palestrina's remark to have been an perceive the subject itself to require.'

3 The crucial part of the dedication to Giulio Cesare Colonna, ‘Principe di Palestrina’ etc., reads (my translation): ‘And it should please you all the more to receive these fruits of mine in that they have been brought to you already ripe (quanto che le vengono portati già maturi) by him who lives by birth as your most faithful vassal and by choice as your very devoted servant.’ The full text may be seen in Palestrina, Werke, ed. Haberl and others, 28; the portion translated here also appears in Baini, Memorie storico-critiche, ii pp. 177–8Google Scholar. Baini took the expression ‘frutti … portati già maturi’ to mean that the madrigals were mature works of the composer, ‘the work of the time and not from his youthful years’ (p. 177); he explained away the conflict with the position Palestrina had espoused in the preface to the Song of Songs cycle of 1584 by claiming that the madrigals in the second book for four voices of 1586 ‘insofar as they deal with love are purified (gastigati) and can be heard without objection’ (p. 178). With Baini, I believe Palestrina's remark to have been an oblique reference to his earlier claim and a justification for bringing out more secular compositions, but I take it in the opposite sense. To me the expression ‘già maturi’ suggests not that the madrigals had been freshly composed but rather that they had been on hand since before the putative decision to compose only on sacred texts.

4 For the tonal disposition of Palestrina's ‘Vergine’ cycle, see table 5 in Powers, H. S., ‘Tonal Types and Modal Categories in Renaissance Polyphony’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 34 (1981), pp. 428–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Powers, H. S., ‘The Modality of “Vestiva i colli”’, Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Music in Honor of Arthur Mendel, ed. Marshall, R. L. (Kassel and Hackensack, 1974), pp. 40–3Google Scholar. For the tonal disposition of the second book of spiritual madrigals, see Table 6, below.

5 ‘Tonal types’ — the term is a translation of Siegfried Hermelink's ‘Tonartentypen’ — are discussed at length in Powers, ‘Tonal Types and Modal Categories’. See also pp. 52–3 below.

6 For the tonal disposition of the offertory cycle, see Table 5, below.

7 Lipphardt, , Die Geschichte des mehrstimmigen Proprium Missae, pp. 55–6Google Scholar.

8 Cummings, A. M., ‘Toward an Interpretation of the Sixteenth-century Motel’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 34 (1981), pp. 43–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Ibid., p. 52. For references to motets in the published extracts from the Sistine Chapel diaries see his n. 5 (p. 45) and n. 15 (pp. 47–8).

10 Ibid., p. 55.

11 Ibid., pp. 45–51.

12 For a brief description and bibliographical note, see Boetticher, W., Orlando di Lasso und seine Zeit (Kassel, 1958), pp. 830–1; see also pp. 558–9Google Scholar on printed sources for most of the motets. The Hofkapelle offertory manuscript is no. 131 in Maier, J.J., Die musikalischen Handschriften der k. Hof- und Staatsbibliothek in Muenchen … usque ad finem saeculi xvii confectus (Munich,1879)Google Scholar.

13 Leuchtmann, H., Orlando di Lasso, I: Leben (Wiesbaden, 1976), p. 189Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., p. 190.

15 Si ambulavero (five voices), for Thursday in the third week of Lent, mentioned earlier, comes from the ‘Antwerp’ motet book, RISM 1556a. Eripe me … Domine (four voices), for Monday in Holy Week, was published in the ‘four-language’ anthology, RISM 1573d. Ave Maria (five voices), for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, and Illumina oculos meos (four voices), for Saturday in the second week in Lent appeared first in print only in the Magnum opus musicum. The consistency with which the relevant prints of 1582 and 1585 seem to have avoided only previously published pieces, however, suggests that both the five-voice Ave Maria and Illumina oculos meos may have appeared before 1582 in some publication now vanished.

16 That is, all except Illumina oculos meos and Eripe me … Domine.

17 For a conspectus of the tonal arrangements of RISM 1582d, e and f, see Powers, ‘Tonal Types and Modal Categories’, table 13.

18 See note 5.

19 The contents are given in Boetticher, , Orlando di Lasso und seine Zeit, p. 559Google Scholar, n. 60, ordered by the motet numbers of RISM 1585a and 1582f. Boetticher gave the numbers in 1582f in parentheses and this convention is followed in Table 4 here. Like the editor of 1585a, Boetticher interchanged the two Benedictus es Domine settings — Le Roy and Ballard placed them in the right order — and he neglected to indicate where Gaudent in coelis fits into the series.

20 For the tonal dispositions of Lasso's publications RISM 1594a and 1595a, showing his modally anomalous use of ♮ – g2 –A, see Powers. ‘Tonal Types and Modal Categories’, tables 14 and 4. For another instance of ♮ – g2 – A being used to represent mode 3, see ibid., table 2, which gives the tonal disposition of Tylman Susato's two- and three-voice chanson reductions of l544 (Premier livre des chansons à 3 parties (Antwerp, 1544)). The type ♮ – g2 – A as a representative of mode 1, as in Palestrina's offertories, is discussed below (and see Table 5).

21 After Powers, ‘Tonal Types and Modal Categories’, table 6.

22 See aslo his review of, and his reply to, Meier, B., Die Tonarten der Klassische Vokalpolyphonie (Utrecht, 1974)Google Scholar in Die Musikforschung, 29 (1976), pp. 354–7, 300–3Google Scholar.

23 Die Musikforschung, 29, p. 300Google Scholar.

24 Dahlhaus, Untersuchungen, pp. 189–90Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., p. 185.

26 Meier, B., ‘Bemerkungen zu Lechners Motectate sacrae von 1575’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 14 (1957), pp. 83–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Ibid., pp. 84–5.

28 Dahlhaus, , Untersuchungen, pp. 184–5Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., p. 185.

30 Ibid., p. 185.

31 Ibid., p. 185.

32 Meier, , Die Tonarten, pp. 53–64Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., p. 213.

34 See Powers, ‘Tonal Types and Modal categories’, tables 3 and 8–A, respectively.

35 For other ways of contrasting modes 3 and 4, see Powers, , ‘Tonal Types and Mod Categories’: tables 1 (Cipriano de Rore, I madrigati a cinque voci (Venice, 1542))Google Scholar and (Lasso's Penitential Psalms), ♮–c1,–E versus ♮ –c2––E and compare table 5 (Palestrina ‘Vergine’ cycle); table 2 (Susato, Premier livre des chansons à 3 parties (1544)), ♮–g2–A versi ♮ –c1–A; table 7 (Lasso's duos of 1577), b–g2–A versus b–c1–A.

36 Hermelink, , Dispositiones modorum, p. 119Google Scholar. Hermelink has surveyed and analysed the tonal types — the concept and term ‘Tonartentypen’ are his (pp. 13–14) — of Palestrina's entire output as published in the Haberl edition; he has also provided footnote references to Orlando di Lasso, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Haberl, F. X. and Sandberger, A., 21 vols. (Leipzig, 1894–1926) in his analytical discussions (pp. 105–43)Google Scholar of each of the individual tonal types as Palestrina used them.

37 Hermelink. Dispositiones modorum, p. 160Google Scholar.

38 The entering pair of voices in the incipit of no. 24, Improperium exspectavit cor meum, in b–c2, … F1–F representing mode 6, is the same as the incipit in Benedicite – ut– mi–fa–mi in the lower voice answered by ut-re-fa-mi in the upper voice — but of course starting from f and c' respectively in cantus mollis rather than from ć and c' in cantus durus. Ut–fa is the fourth that approaches the final from below that is ‘proper’ to plagal mode 6, and is also the fourth ‘common’ to modes 6 and 5 that spans the fourth from the final upward: it is the repercussion interval for mode 8. For more on ‘proper’ and ‘common’ fourths, see the references in note 39, and further discussion below.

39 For a summary of the Italian theory of modes, see Powers, H. S.. ‘Mode’. The Sew Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, S., 20 vols. (London, 1980). xii. pp. 392–5, 404–5Google Scholar; see also Niemöller, K. W., ‘Zur Tonus-Lehre der italienischen Musiktheorie des ausgehenden Mittelalters’, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch, 40 (1956), pp. 23–32Google Scholar, and Bergquist, E. P., ‘The Theoretical Writings of Pietro Aaron’ (Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 1964), chap. 4Google Scholar.

40 See Powers, ‘The Modality of “Vestiva i colli”’. table 1. For a general conspectus of four ways of representing the contrast of modes 1 and 2, see Powers. ‘Tonal Types and Modal Categories’, pp. 451–2, and tables 1, 3, 5 and 7; see also Powers, ‘Tonal Types’, example 4, for Palestrina's two ways of representing the contrast.

41 Hermelink, , Dispositiones modorum, p. 140Google Scholar.

42 Dahlhaus, . Untersuchungen, p. 202Google Scholar.

43 Powers. ‘The Modality of “Vestiva i colli”’. p. 44.

44 Christoph Bernhard identified Ad te levavi as beginning in the plagal D mode and ending in the authentic A mode: see Müller-Blattau, J. M.. Die Kompositionslehre Heinrich Schützens in der Fassung seines Schülers Christoph Bernhard (Leipzig, 1926), p. 109Google Scholar. trans. Hilse, W., The Music Forum, 3 (1973), pp. 148–9Google Scholar. Bernhard also analysed Ad te levavi as his illustration of extensio modi … the extension of a composition, after its tonus has been sufficiently formed, occurring through all the sounds of the octave… outside the proper limits of the mode.’ (Müller-Blattau, . Die Kompositionslehre, trans. Hilse, . pp. 144–6)Google Scholar Bernhard quoted and identified every new subject and point in terms of its principal degrees, though the medial subjects are not given modal identification. Many other citations from the Palestrina offertories occur in Bernhard's discussion of the modes. Bernhard followed Zarlino's revised twelve-mode scheme, in which mode 1 is the authentic C mode: what I have referred to as D plagal and A authentic he actually called mode 4 and mode 11, respectively.Bernhard's ascription and his analysis of Ad te levavi furnish a good instance of the need for a critical approach to theorists as witnesses either to systematic orientation or to compositional intent. Palestrina's Ad te levavi was conceived by its composer as representing mode 1 of an octenary modal system. Bernhard's brief phrase-by-phrase descriptive analysis is impeccable as far as it goes, but not only the analysis but also the modal ascriptions are Bernhard's judgement. not simple testimony: his modal ascriptions, in fact, are both systematically and compositionally at variance with those the composer himself had in mind. The conflict can of course be set aside by regarding the composer's ‘intentions’ in composing the work as irrelevant to analysis and criticism of the ‘work’ itself. The work is thereby treated as an object for contextual (meaning in fact ‘context-free’) analysis according to whatever overt or covert system of accounting for musical ‘reality’ the newer critic may see fit to adopt or assume. This is the way Dahlhaus approached Palestrina's offertories. Johnson's, Douglas ‘Beethoven Scholars and Beethoven Sketches’ (19th-century Music, 2 (1978), pp. 3–17)CrossRefGoogle Scholar analogously considers Beethoven's sketches invalid as aids in the analysis and criticism of Beethoven's works, invoking the so-called ‘intentional fallacy’ (see also the responses and rejoinders by various scholars in 19th-century Music. 2 (1978), pp. 270–9; 3 (1979), pp. 187–8)Google Scholar. I myself prefer to let apparent conflicts between intentions (however they are known or inferred) and realisations (by whomsoever interpreted) stand in conflict, unresolved; indeed I like to highlight them since they reflect the normally dynamic and pluralistic contexts of musical thought.

45 See the references in note 39.

46 After Powers, ‘Mode’, p. 393.

47 da Brescia, Aiguino Illuminato. Il tesoro illuminato di tutti i tuoni di canto figurato (Venice, 1581), fol. 14Google Scholar.

48 See Hermelink, , Dispositiones modorum, pp. 11–12Google Scholar, and Meier, , Die Tonarten, p. 138Google Scholar.

49 See note 4.

50 Powers, ‘The Modality of “Vestiva i colli”’, pp. 45–6.

54 For a historical account of ‘the poetic function of the modes’, see Powers, ‘Mode’, pp. 397ff. The discussions of ‘modal ethos for polyphony’ by Burtius, (Opusculum musices (Bologna, 1487))Google Scholar and Finck, (Practica musica (Wittenberg, 1556)) are summarised on p. 399Google Scholar; see also pp. 407, 410, on Glarean.