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In the early 16th century another religion, initially a splinter group, or
breakaway group, began to protest the practices of the Roman Catholic Church,
protests with regards to religious doctrine and economics.
The flow of money heading south from Germany into Italy and
specifically to Rome.
They ultimately were call the Protest Tents, or the Protestants.
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Luther was not only a theologian but a skilled musician.
Indeed, his favorite composer was the fore-heard Josquin Des Prez.
"The notes regulate (control) other composers with Josquin, however,
he governs the notes." And indeed, Martin Luther himself was a composer.
Here you see a slide of a a tenor.
Let's take a look at the specifics with the pointer here.
Up at the top, we see the 46 there.
What would that be [FOREIGN].
So, this is in Latin, written by Martinus Luther.
But the text here of this song that Luther created is in German.
German was supposed to be part of the service of the Lutheran religion.
This is a composition again that Luther himself created.
We call it a chorale, what other denominations would call
simply a hymn tune, so Martin Luther has created a choral tune here.
We're going to listen to it.
And as we listen to it, notice that it is actually in octaves.
But each of the octaves is separated according to voice.
We have a bass voice, a tenor voice, and a female voice in the soprano.
So, let's hear it now.
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Talk about that in a moment.
Just has the music for the tenor not the other parts in it.
All right, let's take a look here by of what about what we just said.
Let's take a look at a slide that gives us some terms.
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Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, Chorale Tune,
again same thing as a Hymn Tune, Part Book.
By that we mean a book containing just one vocal part.
Monophonic texture that we heard there.
Polyphonic texture,
well let's go back and listen to that and we could even throw in here the term
homophonic texture because in a way that's what we have with the next slide.
Let's take a look at the next slide and before we get to it.
Let's observe the following that we're not going to have the music here
be exactly what the music we see on the screen be exactly what we are hearing.
We are going to hear Luther's original music
helped along here by an arrangement by Yohan Valter.
Luther's original music With a score,
certainly a different score, from the 19th century.
The melody that you will hear,
you'll see in the soprano part is actually being sung in the tenor line.
Let's have a listen.
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>> Maybe we'll fade that out now.
Let's take a look at a map, see where we are.
By the mid 15th century most of northern Europe
had blown over to the Protestant cause.
Cities such as Augsburg and Munich, well they were sort of half and half.
Swing cities.
Vienna was still fully Catholic, Innsbruck, and so on down to Italy.
The Catholic church who has since fought back in the form of the counter
reparation and for the counter reparation we're going to go back to Rome and
take a look at an image of St. Peters as it is being built.
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In the Vatican, this is the Sistine Chapel here.
This is the roof of the Sistine Chapel.
This is the great dome of St. Peter's designed in part by Michelangelo.
You can even see the workmen up there Let's go into the Sistine Chapel.
This was, again, the time of the counter-reformation and
the Council of Trent.
What was the Council of Trent?
Well, it was a gathering of all the leaders,
all the male leaders of the church.
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To determine how to respond to the protestant reformation.
On this slide you see that victory, here, will be that of the faithful Catholics.
You see the allegorical figure of victory wearing a papal tiara.
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Now, the foremost composer of counter reformation music was.
He wrote in a pure clear style, not too much imitation so
that the faithful could focus ont he text, so that they could understand the text and
not just enjoy the music.
Because of this pure style of church music
He was said to be the savior of church music.
The savior of needless to say, Roman Catholic church music.
Here we have an image of Palestrina on the right, presenting a volume
of his Salvific masses to Pope Marcellis.
In the 1560s.
But let's think about.
You can see the soprano part on this piece here.
Let's think about how the sopranos were actually performed in this period.
Who sang the soprano line?
Well, there were three possibilities And one of them was not having women singing
the soprano or alto part because, ever since the Bible,
there had been this proscription against women singing in the church.
Mulier taceat in ecclesia, the woman should be Silent in the church.
Well if that's the case, who is going to sing the voice parts then?
Well, three possibilities, as you can see here.
First, males singing in falsetto, we've heard that already today,
we'll hear more of it.
Secondly, choir boys, here's a good image of that, fresco...
Showing choir boy down below, and older toncert clerics behind him.
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And a third possibility was the castrato.
Castratis entered the Sistine Chapel during the 1560s, and then,
during the 17th and 18th century, because they became important in opera.
They become something similar to
the rockstar of the stage because of their high voices,
their powerful voices, and the capacity, as you can see by this account here.
Their capacity to hold a note for an unbelievable amount of time.
Let's take a look at this slide from a recent film called Farinelli.
As they say, they were something of the rock stars of the 17th and
18th century, and we will come back to this when we come back to Hendle and
the opera in the 18th century.
And and although this tradition of the castrato
died out in opera, in the early nineteenth century, around 1830,
it held on in the papal chapel into the early twentieth century.
Here you see an image of the last living castrato,
Alessandro Moreschi He happened to be recorded by accident.
They wanted to record the Pope at that time.
The Pope is busy, so they took their recording equipment here in 1904,
next door over into the Sistine Chapel, and asked Moreschi to sing for him.
Now, Moreschi was very old at this time.
He was about 70, and needless to say, this recording of 19 1904 was
very early so the sound, the audio is terrible but
at least it gives you a taste of this extraordinary voice.
The sound of the last, in this case,
the last living castrato.
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Let's turn now to a modern video.
Here we have The Tallis singers, Tallis scholars, with peter Phillips.
For my money, the finest acapella singing group in the world, year after year.
No matter what group he has put together, the intonation and the balance and
interpretations are always extraordinary.
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Over top of the lady in blue,
we have two gentleman there that will singing a Gregorian Chant, and
then faintly Here in the distance in another chapel, another choir.
And they will be singing in a way, that once again,
tends to recreate the sound of the castrati voice.
So, we will begin this with Peter Phillips conducting.
And I'll comment as we go.
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>> Again, the part that you heard there would have been sung by a castrato.
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>> This motet by Allegri was sung done during Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel in
full darkness with the castrati placed up the niches near the famous ceiling.
Visitors for centuries came to hear it,
including the 14 year old Mozart who heard the piece once,
walked back to his hotel room with his father and copied it down note for note.
Remarkable, but so too is this sound of the lost castrato voice.
Craig WrightHenry L & Lucy G Moses Professor of Music
