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"We know by experience that song has great force and vigor to move and inflame the hearts of men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal." —JOHN CALVIN

Key Points

  • Renaissance composers set texts from the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) for their polyphonic Masses.
  • Important composers of sacred music (Masses, motets, hymns) include Josquin des Prez and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.
  • Composers used chant, and sometimes popular songs, as a cantus firmus (fixed song) in their masses.
  • Ave Maria . . . virgo serena, by Josquin des Prez, is a motet to the Virgin Mary set in varied textural styles (imitative, homorhythmic).
  • Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass met the musical demands made by the Council of Trent for a cappella singing with clearly declaimed text.

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