Sicut Cervus
Analysis 5
Sicut Cervus
Intro:
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of spiritual music and the bestknown 16thcentury representative of the Roman School of musical composition. He has had a marvelous influence on the development of church music, and his work has often been seen as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony. Palestrina's masses show how his compositional style developed over time. One of the symbols of Palestrina's music is that dissonances are typically credited to the "weak" beats in a measure.This produced a smoother and more consonant type of polyphony which we now consider late Renaissance music, given Palestrina's position as Europe's leading composer. In this piece, Sicut Cervus, Palestrina uses the smooth style of 16th century polyphony. It speaks of a deer longing for spring, a soul longing for you, and God. He had written three sections of music, with parts taken out then added in. Palestrina wrote this piece as the first part of a double motet.
Musical Content
In this piece, Palestrina is using metaphoric context to describe how an individual longing for God is exactly how a deer longs for springs of water. It starts out with the tenor part singing “ As the deer longs for springs of water”, which is when overlapped by the other parts because it is emphasizing springs of water which is compared to God. So all throughout the middle piece, each part sings back and forth beautifully, which represents a musical “sigh”. As the notes soar, the longing builds and you can see that Palestrine was trying to imitate an almost perfect expression of the human yearning for God . At the end of the song, everything is taken into a peaceful manner because you are going to praise God. Everyone is trying to be at peace because they all want to see and praise God. The song comes to a peaceful end on a note of hope that one day they shall all see God together.
Type of Piece
This piece here Palestrina created is a
Sicut Cervus
Intro:
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of spiritual music and the bestknown 16thcentury representative of the Roman School of musical composition. He has had a marvelous influence on the development of church music, and his work has often been seen as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony. Palestrina's masses show how his compositional style developed over time. One of the symbols of Palestrina's music is that dissonances are typically credited to the "weak" beats in a measure.This produced a smoother and more consonant type of polyphony which we now consider late Renaissance music, given Palestrina's position as Europe's leading composer. In this piece, Sicut Cervus, Palestrina uses the smooth style of 16th century polyphony. It speaks of a deer longing for spring, a soul longing for you, and God. He had written three sections of music, with parts taken out then added in. Palestrina wrote this piece as the first part of a double motet.
Musical Content
In this piece, Palestrina is using metaphoric context to describe how an individual longing for God is exactly how a deer longs for springs of water. It starts out with the tenor part singing “ As the deer longs for springs of water”, which is when overlapped by the other parts because it is emphasizing springs of water which is compared to God. So all throughout the middle piece, each part sings back and forth beautifully, which represents a musical “sigh”. As the notes soar, the longing builds and you can see that Palestrine was trying to imitate an almost perfect expression of the human yearning for God . At the end of the song, everything is taken into a peaceful manner because you are going to praise God. Everyone is trying to be at peace because they all want to see and praise God. The song comes to a peaceful end on a note of hope that one day they shall all see God together.
Type of Piece
This piece here Palestrina created is a