Giovanni P. da Palestrina's Missa 'Viri Galilei'

Viri Galilaei is a motet for Ascension, published in the 1569 Liber primus mottettorum, containing motets for five, six and seven voices. The joyful element of Ascension is what gives this motet its character. The six-part Viri Galilaei is a dramatic work, with striking use of different groupings of voices: the opening duet is succeeded by a five voice passage, then by a high-lying quartet and a lower-pitched passage again for four voices. This continues throughout the motet, as also does the constant use of homophony (which is used to astonishing effect for dramatic purposes, for instance at the five-voiced entry at “Viri Galilaei” and at “quid statis”). There is an excursion into more florid writing at “hic Iesus”, but this again returns to homophony is explained by the sudden dazzling cascades of descending figures at the “Alleluia”, which make some of the most bright and shinning music Palestrina ever wrote.

The Mass Viri Galilaei was printed in the Missarum liber duodecimus of 1601, published in Venice. This Mass makes much less use of the homophonic writing of its model (perhaps strange when one considers the extent of its use in the motet), exploring instead the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in the scalic figures of the motet’s “Alleluia” – these appear early in the Kyrie. When reference is made to the static passages of the motet, it tends to be of an inexact nature, though it is always entirely clear. This is the case with the Kyrie’s reference to “hic Iesus”: the reminiscence is quite detectable, but the counterpoint is more developed.

As with the four-part Mass, there is a scalic point to highlight “Iesu Christe” in the Gloria, though here it is even more pronounced and remarkable in the context of the surrounding stasis. The contrasting of different group of voices is also carried over into the Mass, particularly in the Gloria and Credo in which the volume of text demands contrast. The meditative quartet at the “Cruxifixus” is particularly beautiful, seeming to contain the essence of the text of the Creed. The Agnus Dei is in similar vein, being a calm remembrance of the motet, but turning the original descending scales into ascending ones.

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