Giovanni Plerluigi da Palestrina (1525/6 - 1594)

Missa Papae Marcelli
Missa Aeterna Christi Munera



Label: Naxos
Year: 2000



Performers:
Oxford Camerata

Jeremy Summerly - conductor



The Missa Papae Marcelli is for the most part for six voices, entering in close imitation in the opening Kyrie eleison. The Christe eleison brings an immediate element of homophonic writing at the outset, as pairs of voices answer each other before a fuller texture is explored, and the final Kyrie allows the voices to enter in imitation. The Gloria is in general syllabic and often homophonic in its treatment of the text, as is the Credo, in which the initial cantus firmus is at first heard from the first bass. Palestrina continues to explore the possibilities of contrasted groupings of voices, using a quartet for the words Crucifixus etiam pro nobis, before the six-voice Et in Spiritum Sanctum. The Sanctus finds a place for melismata, a number of notes allocated to one syllable, while the Benedictus is given to four voices. There is a full polyphonic texture in the Agnus Dei, with an element of canonic writing in the second Agnus.

Palestrina's Missa Aeterna Christi Munera is principally for four voices and takes its title from the Matins hymn of the Common of the Apostles, with a melody now found in a modified form as the Hymn for Terce on Solemn Feasts, Nunc Sancte nobis Spiritus. The Mass was published in Rome in 1590 in the fifth collection of Palestrina's Mass settings. The four-voice Kyrie, in its smooth treatment of voices entering in imitation, offers a perfect example of Palestrina's achievement, although once again musicological detectives have sought to find traces of L'homme arme. The Gloria has a due admixture of the homophonic writing necessary in the wordier texts of the Mass and there is similar clarity of writing within the imitative textures of the setting of the Credo. In contrast to the four-voice Sanctus, the Benedictus is set for three voices, joined by the fourth voice for the Hosanna in excelsis. The first theme, that has served as a basis for the first Kyrie, the Sanctus and the Hosanna, is used for the Agnus Dei, with the final Agnus Dei allotted to five voices.







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Naxos