Palestrina - Missa aeternae Christi munera

Something different today - a Palestrina mass.

Our church choir were due to sing this on Sunday, the Ladies and Soprano Choral Scholars singing the top section. We have an awesome group of Sop. Choral Scholars (actually ALL our Choral Scholars are awesome!) who juggle increasing demands at school and continue to sing services. Many are currently reeling from the cancellation of public exams with their futures put on hold, but I know they will all rise to the challenge.

One of the tricky things about being a choral scholar at St. Mary le Tower is the sudden leap into a new set of music, much of which we Ladies and Gents know well. This Palestrina mass is a good example - they rock up and rehearse once and then join us in the service. I therefore thought it would be good to feature a "stock item" from our repertoire just for them, after all they would have been singing it on Sunday anyway!

Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525 – 2 February 1594) was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition. He had a long-lasting influence on the development of church and secular music in Europe, especially on the development of counterpoint, and his work is considered as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony. He was born in Palestrina, the son of Napolese parents. He became a chorister at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the cathedral of the diocese of Rome and spent his life in the city. You can read more here about his life.

Palestrina was a prolific composer of sacred music and was extremely popular in his day - J S Bach was a fan and hand copied Palestrina's first book of masses. One of the hallmarks of Palestrina's music is that dissonances are usually on the "weak" beats which produces a smoother type of polyphony. This is now considered to be definitive of late Renaissance music, given Palestrina's position as Europe's leading composer (along with Orlande de Lassus) at the time.

"Nothing is cleaner than Palestrina" !

Missa aeternae Christi Munera
Kyrie


Sanctus


Benedictus
This is recorded here but you will need to download the score from Choral Wiki here

Agnus Dei


If you fancy getting ahead for later in the year, here is the Gloria!



There is support for different voice parts here on SingingPractice.co.uk .
Enjoy!