Musical Offerings ⦁ 2025 ⦁ Volume 16 ⦁ Number 1 17 is in measures fifty-five through sixty. After the text is clearly presented in measures fifty-one through fifty-five, Palestrina repeats the words several times in imitation. The second occurrence is at the very end of the Gloria over the word Amen. In addition to being sung clearly in the measures before, this text is very easy to understand and is predictable to be at the end of the movement, so Palestrina was less concerned with the listeners being able to distinguish it. The first two of the three sections that comprise the Credo are very similar compositionally to the Gloria. Palestrina used note against note or note against multiple notes to keep the clarity of the text. As in the Gloria, he frequently offset the text among the voices to allow more rhythmic variety as he gave some voices faster moving parts or staggered their entrances. However, like before, he quickly brings the text back together. The third section of the Credo does not follow the note against note style as uniformly. Instead, there is more imitation and moving notes, and the overall texture is more polyphonic than the previous sections of the Credo or the Gloria. The Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei have significantly less text than the Gloria and Credo. Because there are fewer words and the text is repeated throughout, the words are naturally easier for the listener to understand.16 Due to this, Palestrina took more liberty to compose in a denser musical texture. The Kyrie employs a lot of imitation and is written in a polyphonic texture. Right from the beginning, the six voices enter imitatively across the first five measures. Only on the last cadences of each of the three sections do all the voices line up textually and rhythmically. However, the text is not lost to the listener because of its briefness and the amount it is repeated. Texturally, the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei I and II are similar to the Kyrie. Palestrina successfully accomplished intelligibility of text, but he also fulfilled the other reforms from the Council of Trent as well. The music for his Mass was not derived from a secular source. Since there is no known evidence indicating otherwise, he appears to have composed it himself.17 The text is in Latin not the vernacular. Overall, the product is serene music with flowing rhythm and the appearance of simplicity.18 Missa Papae Marcelli may have been presented at Vitelli’s house while he and some other church leaders were listening to newly composed 16 Jeppesen, Style and Dissonance, 41–42. 17 Palestrina, 126. 18 Pyne, 57.
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