"God has decided that for all eternity his eternal Word, his divine Son will become human, and in his glorified humanity, we will have access to God. Just as the divinity of God was made visible in the human life of Jesus Christ, so the divinity of God is also accessible in the Body of Christ, in the Church, in her sacraments and sacramentals, including the icons."
Many of the Catholic sacred music compositions made during the
Counter-Reformation period tended to bear the marks of the ideals articulated
by the Council of Trent (though the Council said very little concerning music
directly, the ideals of clarity of doctrine and fidelity to the Church's
traditional teaching were certainly important for the Council). This
period marked the flourishing of a great many composers, who are widely
recognized as the greatest of the Renaissance polyphonic composers: Palestrina
(c. 1525-1594), Lassus (c. 1532-1594) and Byrd (c. 1540-1623), to name only a
few. The clarity, simplicity and noble elegance of these composers' music
was manifest in an intelligible delivery of the sacred texts, along with
fitting musical embellishments. In addition,their musical compositions
are especially recognizable for fidelity to the spirit of Gregorian Chant; in
fact, many of their pieces were simply embellishments of chant melodies. ^1^
My composition is an attempt to imitate the ideals of the Counter-Reformation
composers. It is deeply inspired by the chant hymn, which is woven about
it, especially in the way that it emphasizes freedom in the rhythmic flow
to allow for the text to be delivered clearly. The text for this hymn
comes from Cardinal Silvio Antoniano (1540-1603), who was one of several
men, selected by Pope Clement VIII, to revise the Breviary. This hymn is
one of two texts, written by the Cardinal, that have remained even through the
current edition of the Breviary. ^2^
^1^ Cf. Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay.
Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music, (New
York: W. W. Norton &, 2010), 211-38.
