Music by Palestrina in Honor of the Virgin Mary

As we have already mentioned a number of times, this year the Church is celebrating the fifth centenary of the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi di Palestrina (1525-94), one of the greatest composers of sacred music for the Roman liturgy. Palestrina is actually the name of the town where he was born, about 24 miles to the east of Rome, but he spent the greater part of his life in the Eternal City, working at various ecclesiastical institutions, including the basilica of Mary Major, whose dedication is celebrated today. There is a document which seems to indicate that he was chorister there already in 1537, at the age of twelve, and from 1561-66 he was master of the chapel there. To mark the day, here are his setting of the four great antiphons of the Virgin, and of the Sub tuum praesidium, which in the Roman Rite is sung as the antiphon of the Nunc dimittis at Compline of the Little Office of the Virgin.

Alma Redemptoris Mater

Ave Regina Caelorum

Regina Caeli

Salve Regina

Sub tuum praesidium

The basilica of St Mary Major in a painting of the mid-18th century. 

Palestrina presents his first book of Masses to Pope Julius III; part of the frontispiece of the book itself, which was published in 1554. Julius (whose scandal-ridden papacy was a profound embarrassment to the rising reform movement within the Church – his papal name has never been used again), had been bishop of the very ancient suburbicarian see of Palestrina. It was he who called the great musician from his position as organist in the cathedral of his native town to work in the choir of St Peter’s basilica. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons).