Few composers have shaped sacred music as profoundly as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c1525-94). Hailed as Princeps Musicæ, his serene, balanced polyphony became the model of late Renaissance liturgical music and defined the sound of the Counter-Reformation. For centuries his style has inspired composers, theologians and liturgists alike. Why does Palestrina's music endure? What makes his compositions not only historically significant but spiritually resonant today? To explore these questions, I spoke with Thomas Neal: musicologist, conductor, and director of music at New College School in Oxford. A scholar of sacred polyphony, he is currently writing a biography of Palestrina and is recognised as one of today's leading experts on 16th-century Roman music.
Jan C Bentz: This year marks the likely quincentenary of Palestrina's birth. Who was he?
Thomas Neal: Palestrina is universally regarded as a quintessential Catholic composer and one of the most influential figures in Western music. Even during his lifetime, he was seen as a foremost musician of the age. Over nearly 50 years, Palestrina served as maestro at three major Roman basilicas, including St John Lateran and St Peter's, where he led the Cappella Giulia for 27 years. He was extraordinarily prolific: at least 104 Masses, over 250 motets, and hundreds of other liturgical works survive, alongside 140 madrigals and spiritual songs.
What are the defining characteristics of the Palestrina style?
For centuries, we've been fed the myth that Palestrina had only one compositional mode – "the Palestrina style" – marked by arching melodic lines, strict control of dissonance, contrapuntal devices, and sensitive text setting. While these traits are present in his work, they don't tell the whole story. This so-called style has been tied to Roman conservatism, in contrast to the innovation of northern Italian composers, and has cast Palestrina as a figure of bland perfection. In
truth, "the Palestrina style" is a historical construct. It secured his place in textbooks, but it obscures the variety and depth of his output. Only recently have scholars and performers begun to appreciate the richness and complexity of his music. Like many of his contemporaries, he employed a range of styles suited to specific texts, functions and performance contexts.
Which composers inspired him and what did he learn from them?
Palestrina was born during what some call the High Renaissance, two generations after Josquin des Prez, and in the era of composers like Jacob Clemens non Papa, Nicolas Gombert and Adrian Willaert. Surviving manuscripts reveal that Palestrina's early repertoire included works by Josquin, as well as Roman composers like Cristóbal de Morales and Costanzo Festa. Throughout his life, Palestrina honoured earlier French and Flemish masters by using their motets as models for his parody Masses. From them, he learned to shape musical material, texture, and text-setting. Palestrina absorbed the technical complexity of his predecessors but expressed it with clarity and grace; he also applied rhetorical principles to sacred polyphony, achieving expressive text delivery without sacrificing musical beauty.
What role did Palestrina actually play in shaping post-Tridentine liturgical music?
As the leading composer in Rome during the Counter-Reformation, Palestrina played a defining role in shaping the music of the post-Tridentine Church. He dedicated his life to composing a vast repertoire for the Roman liturgy, including Masses, motets, hymns, lamentations and spiritual madrigals. His music circulated widely, both in manuscript and print, across Italy, Iberia and beyond thanks to the efforts of Roman, Venetian, Flemish and German publishers.
His works helped codify the musical identity – Romanitas – of the reformed identity Catholic Church. His Vespers hymns, for example, were reprinted in 1644 without mention of the composer, suggesting their perceived authority as official texts. He profoundly influenced a generation of composers; his style reached northern Italy, and even touched Venice.
Palestrina dedicated nearly his entire career to sacred music. How do his compositions reflect a theological understanding of divine worship?
The madrigal was the dominant musical form of the 16th century, and Palestrina composed over 140. After the Council of Trent, however, he focused almost entirely on liturgical music for the Roman Rite. His earlier Masses and madrigals often reflect more personal or institutional connections, while his later works were aimed at a broader public. If not literally the "voice of the Church", Palestrina certainly composed with the Church's liturgical needs in mind. His style is marked by clarity, reverence and fidelity to the text. He later subtly modernised his approach by blending styles to enhance textual expression and devotion.
In the 19th century, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Wagner sought to revive interest in Palestrina. What did they see in his music that made it a model for liturgical renewal, and how did this affect later Catholic composers?
Palestrina's historical musical image and legacy are unique. His Masses and motets were long regarded as the ars perfecta of sacred polyphony – a perception reinforced by the 19th-century Cecilian Movement and still echoed in music pedagogy today. From the 17th century onward, theorists in Italy, Germany and Spain codified elements of his style into the stile antico tradition. Palestrina's 19th-century resurgence built on a continuity of interest, especially in Rome. A turning point came with Giuseppe Baini's Memorie storico-critiche, Palestrina's first major scholarly biography. Though influenced by prior narratives, Baini's archival research laid the groundwork for future musicology. Meanwhile, the Cecilian Movement, centred in cities like Munich, Vienna and Regensburg, embraced Palestrina as a model of pure, a cappella church music. They saw him as a conservative force who charted a path between Renaissance humanism and musical excess. Palestrina shaped the sacred music of Bruckner and Rheinberger, and secular composers like Saint-Saens and Debussy. The movement also contributed to 20th-century neoclassicism and the broader early music revival, influencing Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Poulenc.
Palestrina's music is often described as the ideal fusion of beauty and liturgical function. Given current debates on sacred music in the Catholic Church, do you believe his approach offers insights into balancing aesthetic excellence with pastoral considerations?
Palestrina's music is liturgically suited because of its beauty. He composed within a high cultural tradition that elevated the liturgical text, accompanied sacred action, and inspired devotion in clergy, singers and congregation alike. But his Masses were shaped not just by texts, but by liturgical actions as well. His music swells at Jesu Christe in the Gloria just as the priest bows; the Benedictus is always a quieter, contemplative section after the consecration of the elements. His music is inseparable from the traditional liturgy and in that context, its power is fully revealed. Palestrina never imposed his own personality on the liturgy. He avoided musical gimmicks or dramatic effects. Nor did he use liturgy as a platform for innovation. His goal was simple: to write the best music possible for the public worship of the Church: a musical "city upon a hill". His work reflects a deep sensus liturgiae, from which the Church may still find much to learn.
Photo: graphic with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (credit: Arcadia)
Dr Bentz teaches at Blackfriars, Oxford
This article appears in the September 2025 edition of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre and counter-cultural Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click HERE.
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