Palestrina: Missa Assumpta est Maria

When the Council of Trent met from 1545 to 1563, they intended to eliminate all polyphony from the Mass. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was able to convince them that polyphony does have a place in that Mass, and can be used to enhance and clarify the texts through simple melodies with lighter, more balanced textures. The Missa Assumpta est Maria is a perfect example of this style of writing, and how it is effective.

The Mass is scored for six voices: two sopranos, one alto, two tenors, and one bass. Palestrina achieves a certain lightness throughout the work by exploring primarily the voices' upper ranges. Even the basses rarely dip into their lower range (Coates, 127). He varies the textures by only sounding a few voices at a time, which also contributes to the lightness of the work. The Kyrie and Agnus Dei in particular feature this type of texture play. Palestrina rarely has all six voices sing simultaneously (Roche, 28). For example, All six voices sing “Kyrie eleison”, but only four sing “Christe eleison,” and even within these textures, voices are constantly dropping out and joining in.

The Missa Assumpta est Maria is based on a pre-existing motet, Assumpta est Maria in Caelum, which can be heard in the opening of the Kyrie and the Sanctus. Palestrina's use of the motet marks his Mass as a paraphrase Mass, since he does not quote the motet exactly or entirely. He altered voicing, rearranged rhythms, and related only about the first ten measures clearly to the motet. In the absence of obvious motet references, Palestrina provides a short figure of five ascending notes to unify his work. This ascent is first presented in the third bar, and appears often throughout the piece. This little ascending theme could be interpreted as symbolic of the Assumption, which the work celebrates (Coates, 127).

Unlike the Kyrie and Agnus Dei whose main interest is texture, the Gloria and the Credo are more homophonic and demonstrate the ways Palestrina is able to paint the text. When the words “Laudamus te,” (“we praise thee”) is sung, five voices sing in strict homophony covering a range of two octaves, creating a full sound to sing praise to God. All six voices sing “Adoramus te,” (“we adore thee”) and “Glorificamus te” (“we glorify thee”), expanding the texture and the range to the fullest sound in the movement. This full, homophonic voicing is used by Palestrina in the sections where the text is giving glory directly to God. This type of attention to the text can be found throughout the work, and especially in the wordier movements, like the Gloria and the Credo. Palestrina uses homophony in these movements in such a way that the music almost sounds Baroque, and can be seen as a precursor to the music of his successors (Roche, 28).

The entire piece is written in common time, except for one short section at the end of the Sanctus, which is in triple meter. Further research led me to discover that finding a passage in triple meter anywhere in Palestrina’s music is rare. He reserves triple time for certain passages to express joy. In his Masses, he uses the triple meter specifically for the words of the Sanctus, “Hosanna in excelsis,” (“Hosanna in the highest”) (Boyd, 40). It is also at this point that he seems to break away from the strict clarity of his polyphony and allows himself to be a bit more creative, blurring the sounds of the voices and obscuring the text more than anywhere else in the work.

Listening to this work gave me a deeper comprehension of how Palestrina was able to use polyphony to clarify the text of the Mass. I can now understand why the Church was unable to ban all polyphony from the service. Palestrina’s music is so beautiful and so clear, unlike the compositions of many of his predecessors. The polyphony of Palestrina really does enhance the text of the Mass, deepening the experience of the listener.

Works Cited

Boyd, Malcolm. 1973. Palestrina’s Style. London: Oxford University Press.

Coates, Henry. 1948. Palestrina. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd.

Roche, Jerome. 1971. Oxford Studies of Composers: Palestrina. London: Oxford University Press.