“Palestrina’s historical reputation resembles that of no other composer in the history of music.” So thunders Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Unfortunately for him, it’s true. As anyone who has ever taken a music exam knows, there has never been a more worshipped composer, nor a more studied one. It is less certain that there has never been a more influential composer – Beethoven and Wagner spring to mind, but even their style has never been dissected to within an inch of its life and held up as a perfect model for an entire period of musical history as Palestrina’s has. Nor did the most persuasive organisation on earth – the Catholic church – try to embalm the styles of Beethoven and Wagner and preserve them unaltered for future generations.
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