Monday, January 22, 2007

Death of the Rebirth



Every time I hear the music of G.P. Palestrina (ca. 1525-1594), I shudder. Poor Palestrina; it's not his fault that his clear, smooth, magnificent style of sacred counterpoint made him the musical poster child of the Counter-Reformation. That movement helped to kill off Humanism, bringing back to Europe a long period of censorship, intolerance, and injustice in the the arts and every other level of human existence. Somehow, irrationally, Palestrina's music represents this for me. I have an easier time emotionally with the music of Wagner!

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