terms, its first note broken into three) to accommodate two unaccented syllables. Four of the six voices
sing the phrase in choral homorhythm, with melodic decorations taking place only where syllables are
held long, so as not to obscure the text. The top voice uses its chance for decoration to mirror the Ur-
motif, substituting a reciprocal fifth from C to G (embellished with passing tones) for the bass’s fourth
from G to C. That fifth having been achieved, the contour is reversed and the melody descends to its
starting point, just like the Ur-motive in the bass.
EX. 16-8 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli, Credo, mm. 1–8The second phrase of text (“factore mcoeli...”) employs another sort of reciprocity: it is scored for a
different four-voice sample from the six available parts, chosen for maximum contrast. The two voices
that had played the most conspicuous melodic role in the first phrase are silenced and replaced by the two
voices that had been silent before. The result is a kind of ersatz antiphony within the single choir, and it is
a device that will in effect replace imitation as the prime structural principle for the Credo. The
replacement bass, meanwhile, sounds the Ur-motive a second time, its notes broken up into a new
rhythmic configuration to accommodate another set of words, and it is again doubled homorhythmically by
remaining voices.
The close on the final (C) at “terrae” is emphasized by a gorgeous, and very characteristic, double
suspension (7–6 in the alto over the bass A, 4–3 in the first tenor over the bass G). This ornamental
approach to functional articulation is one of the secrets of the post-Tridentine style: to create opulence out
of sheer grammatical necessity is a high rhetorical skill. It reaches a peak in the Sanctus,
characteristically the most luxuriant movement of all, since it is identified by its liturgical Preface as a
portrayal of the heavenly choirs (the source, evidently, of Pfitzner’s sentimental representation).
The music at the beginning of Palestrina’s Sanctus (Ex. 16-9), so magnificently evocative of infinite
space, is in essence just a rockingly reiterated cadence with a decorated suspension (passed from Cantus
to Bassus II to Bassus I). Again, reiteration and varied choral distribution take the place of imitation. Ever
increasing spaces are then suggested by extending the span between suspension-cadences from two bars
to three (mm. 7–9) and then moving the cadential target around from C to F to D to G (mm. 10–16) so that
when C finally comes back (not until m. 32, not shown) it carries enormous articulative force and
effectively finishes off a section.
EX. 16-9 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli, Sanctus, mm. 1–16