Palestrina - Kyrie (Missa Papae Marcelli)

New videos and songs everyday. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 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 the culmination of Renaissance polyphony. Missa Papae Marcelli, or Pope Marcellus Mass, is a mass sine nomine by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It is his best-known mass, and is frequently taught in university courses on music. It was sung at the Papal Coronation Masses (the last being the coronation of Paul VI in 1963). The Missa Papae Marcelli consists, like most Renaissance masses, of a Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus/Benedictus, and Agnus Dei, though the third part of the Agnus Dei is a separate movement (designated "Agnus II"). The mass is freely composed, not based upon a cantus firmus, paraphrase, or parody. As in much of Palestrina&contrapuntal work, voices move primarily in stepwise motion, and the voice leading strictly follows the rules of the diatonic modes codified by theorist Gioseffo Zarlino. Missa Papae Marcelli does not (as far as is known) make use of any pre-existing theme. The motif of a rising perfect fourth and stepwise return (illustrated) is used extensively throughout this mass. It is similar in profile to the opening of the French secular song "L&armé", which provided the theme for...