Week 6: Sacred Music during the 16th century (Reformation)

1. Stuff done this week

- Reading Burkholder et al. (2014) and Steffelaar (2007); notes are published below.

2. Listening done this week

I always loved this beautiful composition "Audivi Vocem" set for four voices by Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505-1585) . This rendition is performed a capella by the Taverner Consort.

The piece is a sacred motet with a Latin text derived from Jeremiah 40:10 and Matthew 25:6:

Audivi vocem de caelo venientem: venite omnes virgines sapientissime;

oleum recondite in vasis vestris dum sponsus advenerit.

Media nocte clamor factus est: ecce sponsus venit.

I heard a voice coming from heaven: come all wisest virgins;

fill your vessels with oil, for the bridegroom is coming.

In the middle of the night there was a cry: behold the bridegroom comes.

 

What puzzles me in this rendition is the use of imitative counterpoint in some passages, which is then alternated with melismatic plainchant. I wonder if this is a liberty of the performers? It just seems odd. The polyphony is sober, beautiful and the text declamation is clear. The tempo is serene, giving it an ethereal quality. I imagine this invoking religious awe among a congregation.

During the the Renaissance period the motet was a popular form. They were invariably in Latin. If the language of a polyphonic choral work was the vernacular, then the work was known as a Madrigal.

Great: Dinosaur Jr released their new album in 2016 named "Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not"! I finally took some time to listen to it; I love the song "Tiny".

3. What I learned

The 16th century

The 16th century became known as the Golden Age of polyphony. During the first half, the polyphonic composition techniques of the Franco-Flemish masters were celebrated. In the second half, the further evolution of polyphony was propelled by composers Palestrina (Italy) and Orlando di Lasso (namely Germany). The musical innovations of the Renaissance were heard in all of Europe.

But as a consequence of the Reformation, a new genre of church music developed, in which the whole congregation could participate. The worldly music, in particular the madrigal, became a popular genre, independent from liturgical music. Also instrumental music developed as a separate genre from vocal music.

The Reformation

The Reformation began in 1517 when Martin Luther (1483-1546), professor of biblical theology at the University of Wittenberg, posted his 95 theses on a church, opposing indulgences and challenging the pope's role in granting them. This caused a theological dispute and marked the official beginning of the Reformation. After this, the church was split in a Catholic and a Protestant segment.

Music in the Lutheran Church

The music of the Reformation evolved from Luther's vision of having the congregation participate in a simplified liturgy. It differs much from Catholic church music.

In the first place, the protestant music is set in the vernacular; in Luther's case that would be German. Luther chose (partly by him composed) melodies for his congregation, that were sung unisono. The melodies, named chorales (derived from Choral, the German for "chant"), have a regular rhythm, short symmetrical phrases and are modeled after texts in strophic form (verses).

There were four main sources for chorales:

1. Adaptations of Gregorian chants
2. Existing German devotional songs
3. Secular songs given new words (contrafactum)
4. New compositions

Lutheran composers soon began to write polyphonic settings for chorales. These served two purposes: group singing in homes and schools, and performance in church by choirs.

The chorale settings could be sung in church and then be doubled by instruments, adding variety and interest to the music and services.

Music in Calvinist Churches

Outside Germany, Protestantism took different forms. The French Jean Calvin (1509-1564), like Luther, rejected papal authority and embraced justification through faith alone. Calvin believed that some people were predestined for salvation, others for damnation. He required of his followers that they live in constant piety, uprightness, and work. Like Luther het valued congregational singing for its ability to unite worshipers in their faith and praising God.

Calvin insisted that only biblical texts, especially psalms, should be sung in church. But psalms had verses of varying lengths, making them difficult to sing. So they were recasted as metrical psalms (metric, rhymed, strophic translations in the vernacular, set to newly composed melodies). These psalms were published in collections called psalters. These spread widely from Switzerland and France to Germany, Holland, England and Scotland. In Germany many of the psalm melodies were adopted as chorales.

Though singing in Calvinist churches was first unaccompanied and monophonic, psalm tunes were set polyphonically for devotional use at home or in gatherings of amateur singers. Settings were in four or five parts, with the tune in either the tenor or the superius.

Important composers of psalm settings included Loys Bourgeois, Claude Goudimel (ca 1520-1572), Claude Le Jeune (ca 1528-1600), Jacobus Clemens (ca. 1510-ca. 1555) and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621).

Church music in England

The third major branch of Protestantism in the 16th century was the church of England, whose origins lay more in politics than in doctrine. King Henry VIII (r. 1509-47), was married to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. With Catherine unable to provide him a male heir, Henry sought an annulment of the marriage so he could marry Anne Boleyn. The pope could not grant this, so Henry persuaded Parliament in 1534 to separate from Rome and name Henry head of the Church of England.

The church adopted Protestant doctrines during the brief reign of Edward VI (r. 1547-53), Henry's son by his third wive Jane Seymour. His half sister Mary (r. 1553-58) took the throne and, loyal to her mother Catherine, restored Catholicism. She was succeeded by Elisabeth I (r. 1558-1603), Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn, who again broke from the papacy and re-instituted the reforms under Edward, yet steering a middle course by tolerating Catholicism.

The pendulum swung from Catholic to Protestant to Catholic, and back to Protestant again; this had repercussions for church music. New forms were created for church services in English but Latin motets were composed during the reign of Henry, Mary and even Elisabeth.

Leading composer of sacred music in the early 16th century was John Taverner (ca, 1490-1545). His masses and motest exemplify the English preference for long melismas, full textures, and cantus firmus structures.

Most important midcentury English composer was Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505-1585), who served in the Chapel Royal for over forty years under every sovereign from Henry VIII to Elisabeth I. Tallis was highly versatile, capable of switching the style of his compositions to suit the different monarchs' vastly different demands. Tallis remained Catholic, but his work encompasses Latin masses and hymns, as well as English service music and other sacred works.

English was the primary liturgical language; two principal forms of Anglican music developed: the Service and the anthem. A service consists of the music for certain portions of Matins, Holy Communion, and Evensong. An anthem corresponds to a Latin motet. It is a polyphonic work in English, usually sung by a choir near the end of Matins or Evensong.

Here is an example of Tallis' compositions. It is the anthem "If ye love me", performed by The Cambridge Singers. His anthems are clear and understandable in vernacular language and in a simple musical style. "If ye love me", has, like many of the English anthems, an ABB-form. This means that the binary form AB is extended with an exact repetition of the B-part ("that he may bide with you forever, ev'n the spirit of truth" is sung twice). In this way, Tallis appears to want to emphasize the text, as a preacher would do in a sermon. It also provided an opportunity to vary the dynamics. "If ye love me" is set for four voices: two countertenors, tenor and bass. It is a modest, yet moving piece.

Leading English composer, and possibly student of Tallis, in the late 16th century and early 17th centuries was William Byrd (ca 1540-1623). Although Catholic, Byrd served the Anglican church and was a member of the royal chapel. He was a master of all genres of his time: in addition to secular vocal and instrumental music , he wrote both Anglican service music and Latin masses and motets.

Catholic Church Music

Music in the Catholic Church changed relatively little by the religious turbulence of the 16th century. The primary response to the Reformation was to stiffen the Churches's resolve and reaffirm its doctrines, traditions, and practices. Mass and motet remained the important genres of Catholic Church music. In the second half of the 16th century, the composers had mastered counterpoint and composed balanced music of great beauty. They often wrote for five to six vocal lines, causing them to be closely entwined and making the sound fuller and more melodious than the four part setting by their Franco-Flemish predecessors.

As the Protestant Reformation spread, the Catholic Church responded with a series of initiatives, called the Counter-Reformation. Pope Paul III (r. 1534-49) and his successors brought austerity and asceticism to a church hierarchy formerly known for profligacy and excess.

From 1545 to 1563, with numerous interruptions, a church Council met at Trent (The Council of Trent)  in Italy to consider how to respond to the Reformation. The Council passed a few measures aimed at purging the Church from malpractices. Church music took up only a small part of the Council's time. Some reformers proposed to restrict or even eliminate polyphonic music from the convents; the dense polyphonic textures rendered religious texts inaudible, let alone understandable3. In the end, it was left up to the bishops to regulate music in the services. Some bishops in Rome and Milan restricted music in convents and insisted that polyphonic texts must always be intelligible. This led to a general perception that polyphony was allowed, only if the words remained comprehensible to all.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

The most esteemed master of polyphonic church music in the second half of the 16th century was the Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca  1525-1594).

He lived his whole life in Italy and of which the last two decades were served at the Vatican. He may have "saved" polyphonic church music from condemnation by the Council of Trent by demonstrating with great dexterity how to compose a six-voice mass that was reverent in spirit and intelligible ("Pope Marcellus Mass").

Palestrina's style is sober and elegant and captures the essence of the Catholic response to the Reformation in a polyphony of utter purity. It can be regarded as the completion of religious choir music of the Renaissance.

He wrote over a hundred masses, approximately 450 motets and about fifty liturgical madrigals. Although Palestrina used Gregorian chants in some of his works, a generally composed new melodies for his compositions. His music is on the one had a continuation of the Franco-Flemish contrapuntal style (two or more simultaneous melodic lines), and on the other hand a high point in imitative counterpoint (imitation of the melody between voices). 

The melodic lines are flowing and diatonic; chromaticism is largely avoided. Dissonants are handled with discretion and this goes for the harmony in general, which is of great clarity and sonority. Palestrina's compositions always feature a strong relation between text and music, as each new text phrase is given a new melody.

Below is an example of Palestrina's work: Kyrie from Missa Brevis (mass), performed by The Tallis Scholars. The Tallis Scholars are a British chamber choir, founded by Peter Phillips in 1973 and named after Thomas Tallis.

This brief four voice mass is representative of the Renaissance polyphony. Kyrie consists of three parts: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison and once more Kyrie eleison. One can clearly discern the text "Kyrie eleison" and "Christe eleison" in imitation. The alt voice sets in and is consecutively imitated by bass, cantus and tenor. Sometimes the theme is sung in diminution (reduction of note values in a melody or phrase).

Spain and the New World

In Spain, the Catholic Church was closely identified with the monarchy. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, joint rulers from 1479, strongly promoted Catholicism in their realm. Ferdinand launched the Spanish Inquisition aimed at rooting out heresy. Later Spanish kings Charles I (r. 1516-56, and 1519-56 as Holy Roman emperor Charles V) and his son Philip II (r. 1556-98) mad sure the Church and its music prospered within the realm.

Royal family ties to the Low Countries brought Flemish musicians such as Nicolas Gombert (ca 1495-ca 1560) to Spain, and the Franco-Flemish tradition deeply influenced Spanish polyphony. There are also links to Italy, through Spain;s possessions in Southern Italy, and directly to Rome, particulary after the election of a Spaniard as Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503).

Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) was the most famous Spanish composer of the 16th century. All of his music is sacred and intended for Catholic services. He spent two decades in Rome, where he almost certainly knew Palestrina and may have studied with him. He was the first Spanish composer to master Palestrina's style, yet his music differs somewhat from Palestrina. Victoria's works are shorter, with less florid melodies, more frequent cadences, more chromatic alterations, and more contrasting passages in homophony or triple meter. All of these characteristics are evident in his best known work "O magnum mysterium" (motet).

Germany and Eastern Europe

Much of central and eastern Europe remained Catholic after the Reformation, including Southern Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Poland. Music in these areas reflected developments in Flanders, France, and Italy. Influences came from Franco-Flemish and Italian musicians serving at courts in the region and from local musicians trained in Italy or France.

Chief among the Franco-Flemish composers in Germany was Orlando de Lassus (ca 1532-1594), also known as Orlando di Lasso (the Italian version of his French name). He left an enormous body of music of more than two thousand compositions (of which many motets and chansons), and was in many respects the polar opposite of Palestrina.

In comparison to the restrained style of Palestrina, de Lassus has a very dynamic, turbulent, emotional and even impulsive style. Also the treatment of the text is rather different, for de Lassus represented a rhetoric and dramatic conversion of text to music. This style would probably not have been acceptable for the high clergy Palestrina was composing for.

De Lassus, who had travelled much and stayed in Italy for an extensive period of time, composed in a cosmopolitan style, in which many influences came together. He was so versatile that we cannot speak of a "Lassus style". He was master of Flemish, French, Italian, and German styles, and every genre from high church music to the bawdy secular song. His motets were especially influential and in different way to Palestrina, de Lassus also perfected the art of polyphony.

Here are some of Orlande de Lassus's chansons, sung by the The Hillard Ensemble. The rather mischievous song "Fleur de quinze ans" (2:54), for instance, is representative of the a capella-style of the Renaissance.

The Legacy of Sixteenth-Century Sacred Music

Religious divisions of the early 16th century changed Europe definitively. The Reformation and Catholic response utterly changed church music. The Lutheran church developed chorales that have sparked a musical tradition 500 years old. These works have formed the basis for the later organ works of Bach  and other German composers. Many psalm tunes written by Calvinist Reformed churches are still in use. The Anglican church continues to use the service and anthem, for instance those of Byrd and Tallis. The music reformed liturgy resulting from the Council of Trent remained in use in the Catholic Church until later reforms in the 20th century. The style developed by Palestrina has been emulated in all later centuries. Through studying the religious and political context of the styles, it becomes clearer how such musical diversity developed in this period.

4. Sources

Andrea Scalia (2012), "Tallis - Audivi vocem de cælo" Youtube, viewed 6th of March 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1bbnk1jk5U>

Arnold van der Waals (2015), "Orlande Lassus, Chansons, Hilliards", Youtube, viewed 13th of February 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7Gulq2i7g&t=182s>

BURKHOLDER, J, GROUT, D. and PALISCA, C. (2014) A history of western music, 9th edition, New York: W.W. Norton. Pages 213-240.

Margotlorena2 (2014), "Thomas Tallis - If ye love me - The Cambridge singers", Youtube, viewed 13th of February 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqt005j1dB0>

Margotlorena2 (2012), "Victoria - O magnum mysterium - The Cambridge Singers", Youtube, viewed 6th of March 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xPh-fXYAc4>

PrincepsMusicae (2012), "Palestrina - Missa brevis - Kyrie", Youtube, viewed 13th of February 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot6Cv8T3pAs>

STEFFELAAR, W. (2007) Muzikale Stijlgeschiedenis, 2nd edition, Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Nieuwezijds.