The Worlds Great Men of Music | Page 2

Peter's had withstood the sack of the city, which happened
a dozen years before, and Bramante's vast basilica had already begun to
rise. The artistic life of Rome was still at high tide, for Raphael had
passed away but twenty years before, and Michael Angelo was at work
on his Last Judgment.
Though painting and sculpture flourished, music did not keep pace with
advance in other arts. The leading musicians were Belgian, Spanish or
French, and their music did not match the great achievements attained
in the kindred art of the time--architecture, sculpture and painting.
There was needed a new impetus, a vital force. Its rise began when the
peasant youth John Peter Louis descended from the heights of
Palestrina to the banks of the Tiber.
It is said that Tomasso Crinello was the boy's master; whether this is
true or not, he was surely trained in the Netherland manner of
composition.
The youth, whom we shall now call Palestrina, as he is known by the
name of his birthplace, returned from Rome at the age of eighteen to
his native town, in 1544, as a practising musician, and took a post at the
Cathedral of Saint Agapitus. Here he engaged himself for life, to be
present every day at mass and vespers, and to teach singing to the
canons and choristers. Thus he spent the early years of his young
manhood directing the daily services and drumming the rudiments of
music into the heads of the little choristers. It may have been dry and
wearisome labor; but afterward, when Palestrina began to reform the

music of the church, it must have been of great advantage to him to
know so absolutely the liturgy, not only of Saint Peter's and Saint John
Lateran, but also that in the simple cathedral of his own small
hill-town.
Young Palestrina, living his simple, busy life in his home town, never
dreamed he was destined to become a great musician. He married in
1548, when he was about twenty-two. If he had wished to secure one of
the great musical appointments in Rome, it was a very unwise thing for
him to marry, for single singers were preferred in nine cases out of ten.
Palestrina did not seem to realize this danger to a brilliant career, and
took his bride, Lucrezia, for pure love. She seems to have been a person
after his own heart, besides having a comfortable dowry of her own.
They had a happy union, which lasted for more than thirty years.
Although he had agreed to remain for life at the cathedral church of
Saint Agapitus, it seems that such contracts could be broken without
peril. Thus, after seven years of service, he once more turned his steps
toward the Eternal City.
He returned to Rome as a recognized musician. In 1551 he became
master of the Capella Giulia, at the modest salary of six scudi a month,
something like ten dollars. But the young chapel master seemed
satisfied. Hardly three years after his arrival had elapsed, when he had
written and printed a book containing five masses, which he dedicated
to Pope Julius III. This act pleased the pontiff, who, in January, 1555,
appointed Palestrina one of the singers of the Sistine Chapel, with an
increased salary.
It seems however, that the Sistine singers resented the appointment of a
new member, and complained about it. Several changes in the Papal
chair occurred at this time, and when Paul IV, as Pope, came into
power, he began at once with reforms. Finding that Palestrina and two
other singers were married men, he put all three out, though granting an
annuity of six scudi a month for each.
The loss of this post was a great humiliation, which Palestrina found it
hard to endure. He fell ill at this time, and the outlook was dark indeed,
with a wife and three little children to provide for.
But the clouds soon lifted. Within a few weeks after this unfortunate
event, the rejected singer of the Sistine Chapel was created Chapel
Master of Saint John Lateran, the splendid basilica, where the young

Orlandus Lassus had so recently directed the music. As Palestrina
could still keep his six scudi pension, increased with the added salary
of the new position, he was able to establish his family in a pretty villa
on the Coelian Hill, where he could be near his work at the Lateran, but
far enough removed from the turmoil of the city to obtain the quiet he
desired, and where he lived in tranquillity for the next five years.
Palestrina spent forty-four years of his life in Rome. All the eleven
popes who reigned during this long period honored Palestrina as a great
musician. Marcellus II spent a part of his three weeks' reign