Compositional Techniques Palestrina And Corelli
Submitted by irising on 06/30/2008 05:21 PM
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Compositional Techniques Palestrina And Corelli
Compositional techniques- Palestrina and Corelli
Pieces analysed: * Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli, Agnus Dei 1
* Corelli: Trio Sonata 1 opus 1 No.1 Adagio
Palestrina wrote sacred church choir music and Corelli wrote secular music for string ensembles. Because of this there is already an obvious difference. Palestrina has to consider the vocal lines for the separate voices and the meaning of the words involved in vocal music. Also because the music he wrote was sacred there was the influence of the Council of Trent was really important, which set up rules and restrictions to preserve the integrity of the church music. This made a difference in Palestrina's style. But Palestrina proved to the Council of Trent that it was still possible to write simplistic polyphonic music for more then 4 voices and make the words clearly heard. This is what the council wanted and what Palestrina proved was possible:
In Corelli's string music there were neither words nor strict rules involved. He could compose freely and try out musically more daring things. In his time, the early baroque, harmony took a more important role in music, and before his time, the renaissance, the use of counterpoint was more common. In the development of the harmony the use of basso continuo grew too.
When you look at the original written score of Palestrina pieces they don't have regular bar lines nor a "felt" time signature. (see picture left)
The pulse was created more by the strong harmonies on some strong beats. This also made the music more flowing! These days just to make the reading easier they put the bar lines in. Corelli did work with a time signature and the music is much more rhythmically strong.
In most of Corelli's pieces all the instruments start off together and continue in homophonic structure and don't go their separate ways so much. In the two pieces I'm analysing, the Palestrina starts with an...
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