|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Palestrina: Music for Meditation
Ann Lesley Hamvas
(please don’t turn this in as your own paper!)
"True spiritual music…presupposes, then, a profound, calm, introspective, and pure mood and attitude, and a staunch moral power capable of carrying and upholding the sublime and of resisting earthly passions."1 These words by Justus Thibaut, a German leader in the revival of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s music in the early nineteenth century, reach to the core of Palestrina’s liturgical music. Though many myths and stories have evolved around the life and music of the famous Catholic composer, when listening to his compositions one cannot deny the spirituality within the music. It is serene and contemplative, accenting the correct declamation of the words without losing musical power, and it makes one simply step back and be quiet. The effect this music has on the listener is not just due to the meaning of the words, however, as the Council of Trent and perhaps even Palestrina intended. There is something more, less tangible but just as pervasive. The music is so powerful because of the state that it creates in the listener, a contemplative state similar to meditation. Though the words are important, they, along with the music, are just the vehicle to this state, which in turn helps the listener or worshipper make a more direct connection with the Divine.
In order to understand how Palestrina’s music brings about this meditative state, it is first important to know about his life, though there are few definite details about it—much of his life has been obscured by the mythology that has come to surround his name as the "savior of Church music."2 This knowledge, along with investigation into his compositional style, will help make the connection more clear, especially in relation to theories from music therapy and the formal practice of meditation itself.
Palestrina was born in 1525 or 1526 as Giovanni Pierluigi Sante in the small town of Palestrina in Italy.3 Like many people of the Renaissance and earlier, he is best known by the name of the town in which he was born. Throughout his life he held important positions at many churches, the most important being S. Maria Maggiore, St. John Lateran, and St. Peter’s. He was also part of the Papal choir in the Sistine Chapel for a short time before being dismissed in 1555, along with two other singers, because they were married. His first published compositions, a book of masses, appeared in 1554, and in 1555 he found favor from Popes Julius III and Marcellus II. After that he was never again particularly favored by any popes and spent most of the rest of his career at S. Maria Maggiore, where he had been trained, and again as choirmaster of the Julian Chapel at St. Peter’s, despite his marriage. Palestrina enjoyed the most fame as a composer during the 1560s, but during the 1570s he faced great sorrow when he lost his brother, wife, and two sons to the plague. He considered becoming a priest, but quickly married a rich widow, which allowed him to spend the rest of his life composing without worrying about finances.4
Lockwood and Owens say that Palestrina’s "career exhibits not only enormous artistic power…but also a strong religious feeling coupled with a sense of worldly purpose."5 Though he might not have been as ultimately religious as the myths make him out to be, he was still devout and dedicated to helping people find religious experiences through his art. He says himself that "music should give zest to divine worship, so that those whom pious devotion to religious practice has led to the temple might remain there to delight in voices blending in harmony."6 Here, Palestrina sees music as a way to keep a person engaged in worship. In this sense, it is not something subservient to the words but something supremely important. If someone is not interested in the worship service, it does not matter how well he or she can understand the words. Pyne expands this idea, saying that, as Palestrina was arriving in Rome, the ideals of music were changing and that "music was seen to be far more than a mere embellishment to the ritual; to be nothing less than a form, and a very beautiful one, of prayer if conceived in that high spirit."7 Now, music is the prayer, the connection with the Divine. It is what grabs the person and helps that person engage in a religious experience.
Meditation, too, is a form of prayer, a way of making that Divine connection. According to Deane Shapiro, meditation is "a technique utilized in [Eastern spiritual disciplines] primarily as a means for developing insight (wisdom), purification (lack of anger, greed and selfishness), concentration, as well as inducing altered states of consciousness." It also helps give people new outlooks on the world, heightens self-esteem and adds meaning to the world.8 These traits are almost identical to the goals of mainstream religious worship. Basically, religions attempt to enable the worshipper to have a more enhanced existence in this world. They have higher standards for their members (Palestrina was not allowed to sing in the papal choir because he was married!) and encourage their members by showing that there is meaning in an otherwise random world. Mainstream religions, as well as meditation, are also based on the occurrence of mystical and spiritual experiences, which can range from complete alterations like nirvana to simple changes of perception.9
The defining characteristic of meditation, which distinguishes it from other forms of religious worship, is that it involves "a conscious attempt to focus attention."10 The student of meditation can focus attention by ignoring outside stimuli or by embracing those perceptions in order to zoom in on one thing. This extra focus facilitates the attainment of an altered state or spiritual experience. Many traditions actually use music in order to bring focus to their meditation. The Sufis, Muslim mystics, believe that "higher states of consciousness can be attained by concentrating on the reverberations of bells and the harmonic echoes of choirs," while Tibetan Buddhists use "‘singing’ bowls…to induce meditative states." Mitchell Gaynor, a music therapist, says that "people identity with the bowls’ pure tone and have profound relaxation responses."11 It is in this same way that Palestrina’s masses can create "relaxation responses" and meditative states in the worshippers who concentrate on his music during a church service.
Music in general has often been seen as a path to spiritual enlightenment, not just for focusing meditation. Palestrina’s job was to figure out how music could do that. An obvious characteristic of his music is the "absence…of certain characteristics that the Council [of Trent] decided were unhelpful to proper spiritual contemplation."12 Of course, the features that the Council chose were basically arbitrary, reflecting Church
opinions and general ideas of music at the time, but the fact that they thought music could be helpful in contemplation is important. There was something about music that could lead the listener to a more spiritual experience.
During a study of the effects of sacred and secular music, researchers discovered that "some participants seemed to drift into a trance during the playing of the music," while other participants commented that during listening they had "been ‘on a journey,’ had found the music peaceful, or had experienced nice images." This led the researchers to comment that "music is a bridge for us to the inner (spiritual) world," citing that music "has been believed to have a divine origin—perhaps the only particle of the divine essence that human beings have been able to capture."13 This study proves that music in general (it does not have to be specifically sacred) has the power to lead people to a spiritual experience. The trance that the participants experienced could have been like meditation, especially since they described things that sound like altered states of consciousness or mystical experiences.
The researchers’ idea of the divinity of music is one that has probably been around as long as music has been—otherwise jobs for people like Palestrina would not exist because the church would not allow music at all. A more secular view of its divinity is that music has been "regarded as the language of perfection and the means of communication between the imperfection of existence and the perfect state."14 The "perfect state" can be seen as the Divine, and access to that is the ultimate goal of basically every religion. Music is the ultimate way in which we can find access to that perfection that otherwise does not exist in this world. Religious people have realized this for a long time, and it is Palestrina who brings the musical/spiritual language into complete clarity because of the meditative state his music creates.
Palestrina’s music works to bring out a spiritual experience in the listener under the assumption that "music in all worship is expected to heighten the desired emotional effect in the listener, to emphasize the ritual text, especially certain significant words, and to focus the worshipper’s attention."15 Though Palestrina might reject the idea that his music causes a meditative state, he would definitely agree with this idea. He worked to make the words understood and to engage the listener in the experience, as seen earlier. His "desired emotional effect" was to instill in the listener a connection with the Divine, make their prayers more meaningful, and encourage them to keep attending church by keeping them interested.
Many people have commented on the meditative and religious qualities of Palestrina’s music. Composer Charles Gounod said that when listening to Palestrina’s music, "nothing is noticed as you go along, but at the end of the road you find yourself carried to prodigious heights." Richard Wagner also commented on the spiritual nature of the music, saying that it is "almost as timeless as it is spaceless; a spiritual revelation throughout, that rouses unspeakable emotions as it brings us nearer than aught else to a notion of the essential nature of religion."16 Wagner’s comment is more in agreement with the mainstream ideas of religious experience—something jubilant and overwhelming of which the listener is always conscious. Gounod, however, implies the ideas of meditation. One of the phenomena associated with meditation is that "during the process of formal meditation there is ideally no thinking or evaluation."17 The person meditating does not notice the effects until it is over, and sometimes does not even notice them until much later. Palestrina’s masses demand this same kind of not thinking. The listener simply hears it, is unconsciously soothed by it, and does not realize until later that he has been changed by it.
It is now obvious that Palestrina did intend his music to create a spiritual experience for the listener and that music does have the ability to create a spiritual experience. It is also clear that the experiences music is able to induce have some similarities to the altered states which are characteristic of meditation. Now, what about Palestrina’s music creates this spiritual experience, and how is the experience it creates a meditative state?
Palestrina uses note against note polyphony, which many people did not believe could be used in the church because it can obscure the words easily and it often sounds impassioned due to the many intricate lines working together. His balanced style, however, eliminates this concern because his polyphony never gets so chaotic that the listener cannot understand the words. This control of polyphony was especially important in the Gloria and Credo because the texts are long, but Palestrina had a little more freedom in composing the shorter Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei because there are so few words and most people probably knew them by heart.18 The famous example of his control of polyphony is the Pope Marcellus Mass, which was probably composed around 1562 and is the piece that sparked his reputation as the "savior of church music." It is characterized by simplicity, balance, and imitation of short phrases, as well as swelling, amorphous melodies. Admirers have commented that the opening phrases of the mass are "like a benediction, quietening the spirit with a heavenly sense of peace…that tranquilizes and relieves the spirit."19
Exemplified by the Pope Marcellus Mass, Palestrina’s music is characterized by "ineffable calmness," being the "most subtle and suggestive embodiment ever realized in art."20 While this description is probably a bit exaggerated and romanticized, the idea of calmness cannot be dismissed from Palestrina’s compositions. The first reaction people often have when hearing Palestrina’s music is that it is so calm and smooth, that it is so serene it has the power to relax them. In fact, it is the calmness that engages the listener and eventually enables the transition into the meditative state. This calmness can be attributed to several factors in Palestrina’s compositional style.
The main factor is equilibrium, "the hallmark of Palestrina’s art." Melodies are "shaped with maximum care to create well-balanced melodic motion even in inner voices."21 By attaining this balance in his melodies, Palestrina is able to draw his listener in, almost like a song that would lull someone into sleep. Because everything is so balanced, there are no unexpected leaps or dissonances—everything in the music is predictable, not predictable as in boring, but as in comfortable or acceptable. Therefore, the listener is drawn in, not really sure what is going on but enjoying it because it is soothing. One of the ways this melodic balance is achieved is by not placing semi-minims on the accented beats of the measure. Rather, minims or longer notes are placed at accents, thereby making the accents less harsh because there is less movement, and Palestrina wanted to make sure that "everything that would produce too harsh an emphasis or too extreme an effect was zealously avoided."22
Another factor of Palestrina’s music that leads to equilibrium and calmness is his "extraordinary control of dissonance [which] creates a texture of unparalleled purity and consistency of sonority."23 Though Palestrina composed very little dissonance, when it does occur it is often hidden in the inner voices. It appears a few times in the soprano and almost never in the bass.24 In any music, the soprano and the bass are the most distinguishable lines, so to have an abundance of dissonance in either, especially the bass, would create tension in the listener, exactly what Palestrina wanted to avoid. Someone who is tense will not be able to enjoy a religious experience. Adding occasional dissonance to the inner voices, however, is a good way of adding color to the music without overly disrupting the tonality.
The most striking characteristic of Palestrina’s style is the swelling, balanced melody lines. The music is like subtle waves, ever going in and out, washing over the listener to enhance the state of calmness. Of his melodies, "a noble repose and simplicity are the foremost and fundamental criteria."25 A good example of this is at the end of the first part of the Kyrie in the Pope Marcellus Mass. Some voices ascend while others descend, creating the effect of the voices crossing each other in the middle. With the continuous and simultaneous rising and falling, the listener always falls somewhere in the middle. The melody sometimes seems high and other times seems low, but the middle home is always well-defined. Jeppesen calls the shape of these typical Palestrina melodies "curvilinear," while pointing out that "the ascending and descending movements counterbalance each other with almost mathematical accuracy."26 By canceling each other out mathematically, the vocal lines create the equilibrium in which the listener can begin contemplation. Buddhists often talk about the "middle way," which is a life of moderation that can be achieved through mindfulness and contemplation. If a person is too agitated, he or she cannot participate fully in meditation, and therefore the equilibrium of Palestrina’s music is a good starting point for putting the mind at ease in order to find that middle way.
Now, with knowledge of Palestrina’s style, it is easy to show his music as a vehicle to a meditative state. Shapiro says that there is a certain pattern that an individual must go through when attempting to meditate. The four components are a preparatory ritual, posture, attention, and breathing.27 Each of these four components or steps can be directly related to the experience a person goes through when listening to a Palestrina mass. In general, that meditation does have strict rules already aligns it with Palestrina’s music. Palestrina’s "styles subjects everything—even to the minutest item—to the rules."28 Therefore, because the music itself is intrinsically methodical, it would make sense that it brings out a state that is also produced by method.
The first component, a preparatory ritual, can be either physical or internal. It includes the actual environment in which the meditation is to take place as well as the mindset of the meditator.29 Generally, for meditation, this might include finding a quiet space and relaxing the body. For Palestrina’s music to have an effect on the listener, the listener must be open to the idea that the music can open his or her mind. The original listeners of Palestrina’s music would have the church, which is a very serene and calming place, as their setting, but now for anyone who wishes simply to experiment with the effects of the music, that person could find any place that is quiet enough to be suitable for meditation.
Posture is very important in meditation. Sitting with the back straight is a good way to stay alert and focus attention, as any student who has begun to nod off in class could attest. Zen masters believe that "in order to obtain peace of mind," one must "regulate the body."30 Regulation of the body was a fundamental aspect of the Catholic faith, so Palestrina’s original listeners probably had a fairly strong amount of control over their bodies. In church they would not slouch, but sit up straight as they participated in the service.
Attention is probably the most important aspect of meditation. This idea has been touched on earlier, in discussions of the purpose of music being to focus the mind. Often in meditation, the person will count, focus on a mantra, or focus on his or her breathing. In the church service, the music is simply the replacement for any of these techniques. Music creates "increased arousal" in the listener, which is "a condition of heightened alertness, awareness…a generally enhanced state of being."31 This statement fits Shapiro’s definition of meditation almost exactly. When a person is more alert and aware, he or she will have an easier time focusing attention. Palestrina’s music especially has the power to arouse the listener, if only more subconsciously than other more overtly passionate music.
The final component of meditation, with the weakest connection to the experience of Palestrina’s music, is breathing. Breathing is related to the focusing of attention and the regulation of the body.32 When aroused or relaxed a person’s breathing patterns change. As the body goes into a deeper meditative state, breathing usually slows down. Perhaps Palestrina’s music can be connected to breathing in this way in that people will breathe more slowly when they have been calmed, and Palestrina’s music has already proven its calming factor. Focusing and regulating breathing also balances out the emotions. Palestrina’s music is always described as having a "naturalness and dispassionate calm,"33 so perhaps this is similar to the state that consciously regulated breathing could induce.
In the least, Palestrina’s music should be the ultimate option for background music to meditation or relaxation. With its clear proportions, definite balance, and swelling, hypnotic melodies, however, it is clear that it can be something more. It is not just a meditation aide but can become the whole meditation experience itself. Jeppesen concludes that "Palestrina’s style must be defined…as, practically, a state of perfect equipose in the two dimensions."34 The two dimensions are the vertical and horizontal, or harmony and melody. It is the ultimate definition of the middle way in art. Because of the care Palestrina took in creating his music, it is perfectly calm, perfectly moderate, but it is still passionate and spiritual. It has the ability to produce this calmness and balance in the person who chooses to listen and that balance, in turn, promotes the transition into the meditative state.
Palestrina probably never consciously thought that his music had the power to induce meditation—though he must have believed that it could aide in spiritual contemplation—but he probably would not have been totally opposed to the idea. According to a musicologist working on a reappraisal of Palestrina’s life and music, "Palestrina was not always looking back, but for a significant part of his career was actually looking forward."35 Palestrina knew what he was doing. S. Filippo Neri, one of the many people Palestrina worked with during his career, founded an order in which one of the rules was "the contemplation of celestial things by means of heavenly harmonies." Meditation is simply a more organized form of contemplation, and as Pyne says, "a happier phrase than that could not have been found to describe Palestrina’s music."36
Notes
Paul Henry Lang, Music in Western Civilization (New York, London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1969), 233.
2
Ibid.3
Zoe Kendrick Pyne, Palestrina: His Life and Times (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1922), 2-3.4
Lewis Lockwood and Jessie Ann Owens, "Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina," in The New Grove High Renaissance Masters, ed. Stanley Sadie (New York, London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1984), 94-101.5
Ibid., 102.6
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, "Dedication to Cardinal Carpi of First Book of Motets," in Composers on Music: An Anthology of Composers’ Writings, ed. Sam Morgenstern (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), 3.7
Pyne, 18.8
Deane H. Shapiro, Meditation: Self-Regulation Strategy and Altered State of Consciousness (New York: Aldine Publishing Company, 1980), 20.9
Ibid., 25.10
Ibid., 14.11
Suzanne Gerber, "The Sound of Healing," Vegetarian Times, March 1998, 68-73.12
Robert Walker, Musical Beliefs: Psychoacoustic, Mythical, and Educational Perspectives (New York, London: Teachers College Press, 1990), 6. These characteristics included dissonance, dance-like rhythms, and references to secular music.13
Michael J. Lowis and Jenny Hughes, "A Comparison of the Effects of Sacred and Secular Music on Elderly People," Journal of Psychology 131, no. 1 (1997): 45-55. The study found no significant difference in the effects of secular and sacred music, just that participants had spiritual and relaxing experiences in general.14
Walker, 59.15
Arnold Perris, Music as Propaganda: Art to Persuade, Art to Control (Westport, London: Greenwood Press, 1985), 124.16
Lang, 234.17
Shapiro, 182.18
Knud Jeppesen, The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance (Copenhagen: Egnar Munksgaard Publisher, 1946), 41-42.19
Pyne, 56-57.20
Edward Dickinson, Music in the History of the Western Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1902), 178.21
Lockwood and Owens, 120.22
Jeppesen, 22-23. Shorter notes do sometimes occur on the accents, but the effects are neutralized by using ties, syncopation, and longer runs of short notes.23
Lockwood and Owens, 120.24
Jeppesen, 205.25
Ibid., 83.26
Ibid., 50.27
Shapiro, 212.28
Jeppesen, 105.29
Shapiro., 214.30
Ibid.31
Anthony Storr, Music and the Mind (New York: The Free Press, 1992), 24-25.32
Shapiro, 224.33
Jeppesen, 69.34
Ibid., 293.35
Peter Phillips, "Reconsidering Palestrina," Early Music 22, no. 4 (1994): 576. This article considers that Palestrina was not only active in the one style that he supposedly "perfected," but that he experimented with many other, just as important, techniques.36
Pyne, 81, 84.
since 25 January 2002
