Imitation technique as a form-making means of the madrigal style in Giovanni da Palestrina’s Motet “Quae est ista”

Section 1. World music: retrospections and modernity

Abstract

Statement of the problem. In contemporary Ukrainian musicology, as well as in the world music science, there is an increasing interest in the works of Palestrina, in particular his madrigals and madrigal style. So, the most important contribution to studying Palestrina’s work was made by J. E. Owens (1997) and P. Schubert (2007); the American researcher W. G. Thomas (2009) describes madrigals of the second half of the sixteenth century in her study. Among Ukrainian musicologists, V. Pieshkova (2021) studies the madrigal style based on the Eighth Book of Monteverdi’s madrigals. However, researchers are more interested in Palestrina’s motets. The main reasons for this is the opinion that the composer best implemented his madrigal style in the Fourth Book of Motets “Canticum Canticorum”. The scholars who study madrigals often refer to the motets from this Book in order to better reveal the composer’s madrigal style and demonstrate how unusual the Book of Motets is among other ones, written by composers of a strict style. F. Fitch (2020) writes that it is a collection of spiritual madrigals, using the name of the literary source: “Song of Songs or Canticum Canticorum”. S. Homeniuk (2021) carried out the thorough analysis of the cadence technique in the first 10 motets of this Palestrina’s Book. However, despite the constant use of examples from the Fourth Book of Motets, there is still no detailed analysis of Motet 23, although the sound painting presents in every structural element of it, from the first note to the final consonance. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of this article is to determine the form-making role of “madrigalisms” and imitative technique as the leading content and stylistic factors in Palestrina’s motet “Quae est ista” No. 23 from the Fourth Book of Motets, which still remains out of the focus of attention of musicologists, which determines the scientific novelty of this study’s results. A general scientific inductive method was applied: by analyzing the imitative technique and its connection with sound painting, the composer’s interpretation of the motet form in its integrity was demonstrated. Special scientific methods were used, such as systemic and structural one, as well as holistic musical analysis, which includes consideration of the imitative technique, melodic and harmony specifics, identification of form-making patterns, etc. Research results. The article discusses madrigalisms represented in the five imitative modules of the 23rd Motet thanks to using a variety of tools and means of transforming the material within the sections. There is currently no strict definition for the concept of “madrigalisms”, therefore, madrigalism should be understood as a musical technique characteristic of secular vocal genres of the 16th century, which consists in reproducing the artistic images of a verbal text using musical means. It was during this period that madrigalisms evolve up to rhetorical figures that were used to embody the affects described in the verbal text. So, in the second section of the Motet 23 “Quae est ista”, Palestrina uses the typical means of sound painting for his time: the step-by-step ascending movement on the word “consurgens” – a rhetorical figure “anabasis”, which usually illustrated images of joy and spiritual uplift, and in the Church tradition – ascension, resurrection; as well as timbre development, when the section begins in the four lower voices, and ends in the four upper ones. In this way, together with the melodic development through the imitative technique, the composer successfully embodies the image of dawn (the word “aurora” figuring in the text). The analysis of madrigalisms presented in the Motet demonstrates that Palestrina, using the possibilities of the polyphony imitation, texture and timbre coloring, different types of melodic movement, smooth and jumpy, does not simply create sound-writing effects, but permeates almost every sound of the motet with them. Conclusion. Since the polyphonic imitation is the main factor of structuring in the work, and it is obvious that Palestrina uses it in all sections of the form for the illustration of verbal images, we can constant of the influence of madrigalisms on the form-making process in the Motet. The textural and timbre design, images, and writing technique, given the madrigalisms used, indicate that the Motet is written in a three-part form, where in the extreme parts the idea of the main question posed in the verbal text is embodied; in the middle part, the composer depicts the heavenly bodies (the Lune, the Sun), with which Shulamith, the heroine of the Motet, is compared. So, madrigalisms should not be perceived only as decoration; its can significant influences the structure and interpretation of the musical form.