Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

It is very rare for any early symphony to attain the level of polyphonic mastery that Simpson achieves in the central part of his first symphony, whose purity of expression and quiet grandeur is unique in the world of contemporary music.

The only influence that the listener may readily recall is Palestrina, though the expansive design and harmonic simplicity is strongly typical of Simpson.

The slow movement, whose main idea is an inversion of the second theme, fugato at the first movement, then rises to a lyrical climax.

A mysterious transition at the entry of the horns introduces a gently The second section returns the tranquility and is denoted by woodwinds and horns.

The Latin mass is incredible.

But like you say about the Italians, I studied Palestrina when I was studying counterpoint.

Every Jewish kid who wants to be a composer has to go through the Catholic Church.

I wrote a Renaissance mass, Palestrina style.

So this is nothing new to me.

So there was a beauty that drew you to the church.

It's not just the beauty.

It's the Latin mass.

The whole world of musical compositions was his to conquer, and he conquered it at the rate of about two great masters a month.

From Handel to Richard Strauss, even from Palestrina to Debussy, the achievements of genius lay at his mercy.

He criticised them with a freedom that was entirely unprejudiced by tradition.

Beethoven was no more to him than Arthur Sullivan; indeed, was rather less.

Francis X. Haberle, Plainsong by the Rev.

T. Helmore, La vie de Pierluigi da Palestrina par Abbe Baini, Life of Johann Sebastian Bach by Splitta, halkins's history of music dr burney's history of music life of hendel by rochester life of hendel by marshall life of haydn by dr noll life of mozart by dr noll life of mozart by otojan mozart's letters Life of Beethoven by Dr. Noll.

Beethoven's Letters.

Seyfried's Anecdotes of Beethoven.

Hogarth's Memories of the Opera.

Havais's Music and Morals, Sir George Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Ehlert's Essays on Music, Rockstraw's History of Music, Fillmore's History of Music, The Imperial Biographical Dictionary, History of Modern Music by John Huller, Musical Studies by Francis Hufford, The Story of Music by J. Henderson.

Letters from Great Musicians giovanni pierluigi da palestrina born fifteen fourteen died fifteen ninety four very holy father study and care are never in accord especially is this so when the latter arises from poverty with the necessities of life to ask more is to fail in moderation and temperance one can easily deliver one's self from other cares and the man who is not content with this has only himself to blame but those alone who have proved it know how painful is this labor to maintain honestly themselves and those belonging to them and how this obligation incapacitates the mind for the study of science and the liberal arts i have always had sad experience of this now more than ever always do i render thanks to the divine goodness which has permitted that in spite of my greatest embarrassments i have never interrupted the study of music wherein i have found also a useful diversion In the career which I have run, and of which the end approaches, I have published a great number of my compositions.

But I have many others, the imprinting of which is retorted only by my poverty.

But looking back, that's why it happened.

That's why I went the extra 100 miles to get together people to sing, and then I put on the very eclectic program of Palestrina and Poulenc in the same breath.

[laughs]

And put it on in King's Chapel, and then, you know, the, the rest is history.

When I was at St Paul's, when I first went to St Paul's and took over the choir, the tradition was that the choir would also sing the setting of the creed from the mass that we were singing.

It could be Palestrina, it could be Victoria, it could be something more modern.

But in the end, I said, no, you know, I'm going to stop that.

And the congregation, this is the one thing where they should be able to affirm their faith, and they can't do it unless they say

And the church wanted to stick with the old tuning.

And you had guys like Palestrina that were coming out and saying, well, actually, we can start mixing up a little bit and do these different types of harmonies.

And you start to see what I would... not to use this disparaging term, but jazz-type chords and harmonies 500 years before jazz is even invented, but done way better and way more tastefully and way more...

So long story short, they finally figured out that you can sacrifice the perfect octave ratio...

And now I realize that lyrics are, if not as important, but more important than the music itself because these sounds combined, the sounds of words matched with the etheric... otherworldly ephemerals that music sounds creates, it's a spell.

It's a magic spell.

And that's why music has been used in that capacity for so long and why it has been so jealously guarded and why perhaps the old church didn't really want people like Palestrina and Bach and stuff to explore this because it gave people man and access to a power that man wasn't really meant to have, or at least according to people that like to control things.

So there's another