left at the end of the sixteenth century a transformed institution—no longer truly “catholic,” but much more
truly “Roman.” It was no longer truly “catholic” because it was no longer the undisputedly universal
Western church; now it had to compete for adherents with a whole variety of Reformed churches that had
sprung up to the north for a variety of reasons, doctrinal (Germany, Switzerland) and political (England).
It was more truly Roman because its power, having become more localized, was more and more strongly
concentrated among the Italian bishops and cardinals. The last non-Italian pope before the election of
John Paul II in 1978 was Adrian VI, a Netherlander who was elected in 1522 and reigned, rather
ineffectually, for only twenty months. For more than 450 years, from Clement VII to John Paul I, the
nationality of the Roman pope was a more or less foregone conclusion. The same sixteenth-century
transfer from Netherlandish to Italian leadership took place in Roman Catholic music.
The two composers to be chiefly treated in this chapter—Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca. 1525–
94) and William Byrd (1543–1623)—were the outstanding members of the last generation of musicians
who kept the ars perfecta faith unquestioningly. Theirs was the last generation of musicians who
unanimously saw the highest calling of their art in divine service, and whose primary social relation as
artists was to institutions of the Catholic religion. They brought the ars perfecta to its greatest stylistic
heights even in the period of its cultural decline. Their actual relationship to religious authority differed
diametrically. Palestrina was the quasi-official musical spokesman of Catholic power, Byrd its
clandestine servant in adversity. The difference is reflected in their music, to be sure, and with intensity;
but that difference found expression within a fundamental stylistic agreement, which after all is what the
ars perfecta was all about.
PALESTRINA AND THE ECUMENICAL TRADITION
The first native Italian to be a major creative player in this narrative (as opposed to theorists like Aaron
or Zarlino), Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina—the name means “Giovanni Pierluigi, from Palestrina”—
was born either in Rome or in the nearby ancient town whose name he bore, called Praeneste by the
Romans. He died in Rome, by tradition in his 69th year, on 2 February 1594. By then he had been either
directly in the papal service or at the musical helm of one of the major Roman churches for more than
forty years, beginning in 1550 with the election of Pope Julius III (formerly the bishop of Palestrina), and
ending ten popes later, with Clement VIII. That is the central fact of Palestrina’s career. He was the
pope’s composer, a veritable papal institution in his own right.
That status made him the recipient of an amazing and paradoxical commission: in 1577, at the height
of his fame, Palestrina (then choirmaster of the Cappella Giulia at the Vatican, named after Julius III, his
original patron) was enjoined by Pope Gregory XIII to revise the plainchant that bore the sainted name of
the pope’s predecessor and namesake, Gregory I. That chant was supposed, by long tradition going back
to the Franks, to be divinely revealed (as we have known since the first chapter of this book). Yet it was
now subjected to a “modern” stylistic and esthetic critique, and purged of its “Gothic” impurities
completely in the spirit of the ars perfecta. Palestrina did not complete the project, which reached
publication only in 1614; indeed it is not known how much of the revision he (or his appointed assistant,
Annibale Zoilo) actually accomplished. The result, however, was exactly what one might expect: a
simpler, less tortuous, more “directed”—in short, a more “classic”—melodic line.
In Ex. 16-1, a matins responsory for Easter is given in two versions. The one printed below is the
“perfected” version published in 1614 by the Medici Press in Rome (and therefore called the Editio
Medicaea), which remained standard until the end of the nineteenth century. The one above is the
“restored” text prepared in the nineteenth century by the Benedictines of Solesmes expressly to supplant