A Study Of Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass

Palestrina is one of the most important church musicians in the Renaissance,Pope Marcellus Mass is his most prestigious work.For a long time,this work has been regarded as“a typical work of Counter Reformation spirit”,which has been spreading and far-reaching influence.Therefore,this paper takes Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass as the research object to study the creative characteristics of the work,including analyze the characteristics such as the division of paragraph structure,the type of texture,the use of cadence and the motivic modes,so as to explore the spirit of Counter Refornation and the exemplary writing skills embodied in the Pope Marcellus Mass.The main part of the paper consists of three chapters.The first chapter introduces the background of the creation of the Pope Marcellus Mass,including the description of the Counter Reformation and the relevant contents of the Council of Trent,and the close relationship between the musical reform of the Council of Trent and the Pope Marcellus Mass.This paper discusses the general situation of Palestrina’s life and creation profile,and expounds the unique position and research value of the Pope Marcellus Mass in Palestrina’s creation.The second chapter analyzes the basic creative characteristics of the Pope Marcellus Mass,including describing the connotation of the lyrics of each movement and the division of paragraphs,classifying the texture type of each movement,and the main characteristics of polyphonic texture and homophonic texture are sorted out and summarized respectively.The third chapter further explores other important and exemplary creative features of the work,mainly on the use of cadence and motivic modes.In the conclusion part,the content of each part of the paper is refined and summarized,and it proves that as a typical work of Counter Reformation spirit,the Pope Marcellus Mass is the perfect representative of musical function and aesthetic balance.