219 Religious origin of modern music. Soulful music originates in the Catholicism that was reestablished following the Council of Trent, through Palestrina,27 who helped the newly awakened, ardent, deeply moved spirit to ring out; with Bach, it also originates later, in Protestantism, insofar as it had been deepened by the Pietists28 and released from its originally dogmatic nature. For both origins, a prerequisite and necessary preliminary stage was the involvement with music as it existed in the Renaissance and the pre-Renaissance, especially that scholarly occupation with music, a fundamentally scientific pleasure in harmonic feats and polyphony. On the other side, soulful music also had to be preceded by opera, in which the layman made known his protest against cold and overly-learned music, and tried to restore a soul to Polyhymnia.29 27. Giovanni Palestrina (1525-94), Italian composer who wrote masses to promote the greater glory of the Catholic church, following the Council of Trent (1545-63 )
28. Pietists: Christian sect, begun by Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) and A. H. Francke ( 1663-1727), stressing the individual soul's heartfelt experience of the divine. 29. Polyhymnia: the muse of song. 30. Bartolomé Murillo (1618-82). Spanish painter. |