Palestrixa left a great mass of compositions, all glowing with the fire
of genius, only part of which have been published. His simple life was
devoted to musical labor, and passed without romance, diversion, or
excitement. His works are marked by utter absence of contrast and
color. Without dramatic movement, they are full of melody and majesty, a
majesty serene, unruffled by the slightest suggestion of human passion.
Voices are now and then used for individual expression, but either in
unison or harmony. As in all great church music, the chorus is the key
of the work. The general judgment of musicians agrees that repose and
enjoyment are more characteristic of this music than that of any
other master. The choir of the Sistine chapel, by the inheritance of
long-cherished tradition, is the most perfect exponent of the
Palestrina music. During the annual performance of the "Improperie" and
"Lamentations," the altar and walls are despoiled of their pictures and
ornaments, and everything is draped in black. The cardinals dressed in
serge, no incense, no candles: the whole scene is a striking picture of
trouble and desolation. The faithful come in two by two and bow before
the cross, while the sad music reverberates through the chapel arches.
This powerful appeal to the imagination, of course, lends greater power
to the musical effect. But all minds who have felt the lift and beauty
of these compositions have acknowledged how far they soar above words
and creeds, and the picturesque framework of a liturgy.
Mendelssohn, in a letter to Zelter on the Palestrina music as heard in
the Sistine chapel, says that nothing could exceed the effect of the
blending of the voices, the prolonged tones gradually merging from one
note and chord to another, softly swelling, decreasing, at last dying
out. "They understand," he writes, "how to bring out and place each
trait in the most delicate light, without giving it undue prominence;
one chord gently melts into another. The ceremony at the same time is
solemn and imposing; deep silence prevails in the chapel, only broken
by the reechoing Greek 'holy,' sung with unvarying sweetness and
expression." The composer Paër was so impressed with the wonderful
beauty of the music and the performance, that he exclaimed, "This is
indeed divine music, such as I have long sought for, and my imagination
was never able to realize, but which, I knew, must exist."
Palestrina's versatility and genius enabled him to lift ecclesiastical
music out of the rigidity and frivolity characterizing on either
hand the opposing ranks of those that preceded him, and to embody
the religious spirit in works of the highest art. He transposed the
ecclesiastical melody (_canto fermo_) from the tenor to the soprano
(thus rendering it more intelligible to the ear), and created that
glorious thing choir song, with its refined harmony, that noble music
of which his works are the models, and the papal chair the oracle. No
individual preeminence is ever allowed to disturb and weaken the ideal
atmosphere of the whole work. However Palestrina's successors have aimed
to imitate his effects, they have, with the exception of Cherubini,
failed for the most part; for every peculiar genus of art is the result
of innate genuine inspiration, and the spontaneous growth of the age
which produces it. As a parent of musical form he was the protagonist
of Italian music, both sacred and secular, and left an admirable model,
which even the new school of opera so soon to rise found it necessary to
follow in the construction of harmony. The splendid and often licentious
music of the theatre built its most worthy effects on the work of the
pious composer, who lived, labored, and died in an atmosphere of almost
anchorite sanctity.
The great disciples of his school, Nannini and Allegri, continued his
work, and the splendid "Miserere" of the latter was regarded as such
an inestimable treasure that no copy of it was allowed to go out of the
Sistine chapel, till the infant prodigy, Wolfgang Mozart, wrote it out
from the memory of a single hearing.