CHAPEL MUSIC. – A group of singers and sometimes also of instrumentalists employed in the liturgical service at a court, a cathedral, a cardinal’s household, and above all at the Pope’s.
I. The Papal Chapel.
The oldest chapel, which served as a model for all others, was that created by the pontiffs at the Roman Curia.
The origins of the schools of sacred song in Rome are to be sought both in the schools for the training of the clergy assigned to the liturgical service of the basilicas and of the Pope, and also in the monasteries established near some basilicas, such as those in catacumbas (Sixtus III, 432–40), near St Peter’s (St Leo the Great, 440–61) and St Lawrence outside the walls (Hilary, 461–68), etc. The archicantor John, in his Ordo Romanus (ed. C. Silva-Tarouca, in Mem. della Pont. Acc. Rom. d'Arch., I [1923], p. 215), informs us that various popes before Gregory the Great concerned themselves with song, which suggests the existence of genuine schools of singers. Yet the Roman tradition, collected by John the Deacon about 872 (Life of Gregory, II, 6: PL 77, 90), points to St Gregory the Great as the true founder of the ‘Schola cantorum’, which would also be called the Orphanotrophium, to which he allegedly assigned various endowments, including a house near St Peter’s and another near the Lateran.
The ‘Schola cantorum’ was directed by a ‘prior scholae’ or ‘primericius’ (who in 1397 became the chapel master), followed by the ‘secundus’, the ‘tertius’ and the ‘quartus scholae’ or ‘archiparaphonista’; then came the ‘parafonisti’, perhaps selected singers acting as soloists. The number of singers was not fixed; they were recruited from among the young men educated in the foundations attached to the ‘scholae’, who often pursued an ecclesiastical career and of whom not a few even reached the papacy (Leo II, Benedict II, Sergius I, Sergius II, etc.).
The internal organization of studies closely resembled that which Alcuin had established for the Schola Palatina of Charlemagne, and the distinctive feature of the schola was that it always and only intervened at papal functions, a prerogative that would remain for centuries to the Papal Chapel, which, in the new foundation by Sixtus IV, would be called the Sistine Chapel. In the glorious history of the schola of the patriarchal Lateran basilica, in 1027 we find Guido d’Arezzo, summoned by Pope John XIX to give a demonstration of his method of teaching song and to expound his theories.
The Roman *schola cantorum* began to decline with the departure of the papal court from Rome during the Avignon period (1309); it faded out in 1370 (suppressed by Urban V) but resumed with renewed splendor upon the return (1377) of the papal court, which brought with it a *schola* formed in Avignon, composed especially of French and Flemish elements. From that time is remembered John XXII, who, with his famous decretal of 1324–1325 (*Corpus Iuris Canonici*, ed. Friedberg, Leipzig 1881, part 2, col. 1255), warned against the profaning abuses of measured music, of which some followers of the new school were guilty, rendering the sacred melodies of the antiphonary and gradual unrecognizable, failing to blend the tones and obscuring the serene modal balance of Gregorian chant. However, the Pope was not opposed to polyphony *per se*, but to its excesses: indeed, in the final paragraph he clarifies that he does not intend to prohibit the sweet consonances (octaves, fifths, and fourths) that please the ear and inspire devotion. It is also known that Philippe de Vitry, theorist of the *Ars nova*, was well regarded by the popes in Avignon, and that Guillaume de Machaut, author of the great polyphonic mass for the coronation of Charles IV (1364), enjoyed benefices and canonries granted to him by Pope John XXII himself in the dioceses of Arras, Verdun, and Reims. The musical repertoire in use in the Avignon *schola* can be glimpsed in the two codices containing collections of polyphonic sacred music preserved in the library of Ivrea and in the treasury of Apt, a bishopric near Avignon, as well as other precious codices in Barcelona.
In the Avignon *schola*, French and Flemish composers wrote music, but the first precise indications date only after the return of the popes to Rome; in 1389, two singers from the diocese of Liège are noted in the Roman papal *schola*: Henri Désiré de Latine (or Latunna) and Gilles de Lensi, joined in 1390 by Henri Tulpin and in 1409 by Nicolaus Simonis. Around 1430, singers from Liège were gradually joined by others from various dioceses (Tournai, Le Mans, Rouen, Cambrai, Beauvais, Noyon, Brindisi, Toul, Thérouanne, etc.), until supremacy passed from the Liège school to that of Cambrai, which came to predominate in the papal *schola* between 1420 and 1430. It was from the Cambrai *schola* that Guillaume Dufay, the first Belgian musician to achieve an international career, came to the papal *schola* in 1428, shortly after his ordination as a priest, and remained there until 1437. Less than half a century later, the Sistine *schola* was founded by Sixtus IV with a bull dated 19 January 1480, as a stable and reserved choir for papal functions, for which a worthy seat was prepared in the eponymous chapel built in the Vatican palaces, frescoed by Mino da Fiesole, Signorelli, Fra Angelico, Perugino, and later by Michelangelo, among others.
Immediately after this foundation, we find two Flemings in the new *schola*: Gaspar van Weerbeeck, whom Ludovico Sforza vainly sought to retain in the Sforza *schola* in Milan; he came to Rome as a singer in the papal *schola* from 1481 to 1488 and again from 1499 until his death after 1514; Josquin Després, who was part of it from 1486 to 1494; and in the glorious Roman 16th century, the great figures of Costanzo Festa (1517), the Spaniards Cristóbal de Morales and Bartolomé de Escobedo (1535 and 1536), the Frenchman Leonardo Barré (1537), and the Belgians Ghiselin Danckerts and Jacob Arcadelt (1538 and 1539), culminating in the immortal name of Palestrina, who entered in January 1555 but was expelled in June by the new Pope Paul IV because he was married. After him, other less celebrated but nonetheless notable names appear in the Sistine registers: Palestrina’s teacher, the Frenchman Firmin Le Bel (1561); the Spaniard Francesco Soto (1562), who played a major role in the origins of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Rome with his collection of laudi; the Belgian Cristiano Ameyden (1563); the Roman Annibale Zoilo (1570); the Tiburtine G. M. Nanino (1577), a pupil of Palestrina; after the appearance of Felice Anerio (1594) and the great Brescian madrigalist Luca Marenzio (1595), the golden century of polyphony closes with the Velletran Ruggero Giovannelli (1599), while in the incomparable brilliance of Tomás Luis de Victoria (1601), the 17th century closes. This century saw in the *schola* the most eminent representatives of the Barberini theater, from Loreto Vittori to Stefano Landi and Marco Marazzoli, down to M. A. Cesti (1660), who, with Antimo Liberati, a musician and theorist, is the last renowned composer listed by the *schola* in this century. Indeed, toward the end of the 17th century, composers of any particular fame began to dwindle, though the singers remained excellent; some of them were immortalized in the witty caricatures of Leone Ghezzi, often church and at times theater singers, sometimes contested and taken from the *schola* for the stage, such as Giovanni Francesco Grossi, called “Siface,” who entered the Sistine *schola* in 1675 and left in 1677 to devote himself to the theater, which gave him the nickname for the opera *Scipione Africano* by Cavalli (Venice 1678) and earned him the admiration of Queen Christina of Sweden in *Lisimaco* by Pasquini (Rome, Teatro Tordinona 1681). After him, still in the 17th century, we find a name of note: Andrea Adami da Bolsena (1680), author of a famous volume of *Osservazioni per ben dirigere il coro dei cantori della cappella Pontificia* (Rome 1711), in which, alongside technical matters, a historical gallery of the most distinguished masters is of great interest, with engraved portraits and valuable biographical presentations.
The entire 18th century still had excellent voices, more than illustrious masters; however, two good singers and also skilled composers stand out: Pasquale Pisari, a bass (1752), called by Padre Martini “the Palestrina of the 18th century,” and Giuseppe Baini, also a bass (1795), composer of music including a *Miserere* for 10 voices (1821) and the famous *Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giov. Pierluigi da Palestrina* (2 vols., Rome 1828), in which he also describes the political events of Rome and the Holy See, including the deportation of Pius VI (1798) and other painful events that marked the history of the Church and the world in that late 18th and early 19th century. The *schola* naturally felt the effects of this state of affairs, passing through a period of stagnation in the admission of singers; at the end of the century, among the castrati, who had flourished with success in the history of sacred and theatrical music, one emerged: Domenico Mustafa, a distinguished singer and composer (author, among other works, of a *Tu es Petrus* for three choirs that achieved great success), who directed the *schola* until the beginning of the 20th century, when it passed from his hands to those of Lorenzo Perosi, already renowned for his oratorios (*La Passione*, *La Trasfigurazione*, *La Risurrezione*, *Il Natale*, etc.).
The *Schola* of St John Lateran. — After the papal *schola* of St Peter, mention must be made of the other *schola*, founded by St Gregory the Great in that Lateran patriarchate which served as the residence of the popes from the 4th century until the departure for Avignon. The annals of this *schola* — restored, that is, founded in its present form, by Cardinal G. Dom. De Cupis, a Roman known as the Cardinal of Trani, archpriest of the basilica, endowed by Pope Paul III with a brief dated 19 June 1543, and called “Pia” for privileges granted at the end of the 18th century by Pius VI Braschi — list immortal names in the history of polyphony: suffice it to recall, after Rubino Mallapert, who was its first maestro from 1533 to 1539 and returned from 1548 to 1550, Orlando di Lasso, who directed it in 1553, and Palestrina (1 October 1555–61), recalled from the Liberian basilica, where he had begun as a boy singer.
After him we find A. Zoilo (1561–70), A. Stabile (1575–76), G. A. Dragoni (1576–98), F. Suriano, bringing us to the threshold of the 17th century, which saw at the helm of the *schola* Antonio Cifra, maestro of the Holy House of Loreto, A. M. Abbatini, and Virgilio Mazzocchi, already encountered in the Sistine *schola*; in the 18th century we may still recall G. O. Piton, a composer from Rieti, Francesco Gasparini, whose teachings seem to have benefited D. Scarlatti, and finally G. B. Casali and P. Anfossi, authors of oratorios and cantatas performed in the *schola*.
especially at the Oratory of the Chiesa Nuova. The late 19th century and the beginning of this century were divided between the magisteria of the two Capocci, Gaetano and Filippo, father and son, themselves authors of oratorios well known in Roman circles; following them came the glorious and more than thirty-year direction of Raffaele Casimiri, the fervent and passionate apostle of Palestrinian works, the lively polemicist and serene artist, entirely devoted to reviving, in the technique of transcription and in the practice of performance, the glories of the Roman school and, with it, the greatest masterpieces of polyphony as a whole.
III. C. Giulia. — Founded by Julius II with the bull *In altissimo militantis Ecclesiae* of 19 Feb. 1513, the choir of St Peter’s Basilica has a history of the highest renown for its masters, who form an elect band of illustrious names, beginning with Jacob Arcadelt, the exquisite madrigalist who in 1539 was *maestro dei putti*, followed in the same post by Rubino Mallapert, who held it twice (in 1539 for 20 months and in 1550 for 18 months), down to Giov. Pierluigi da Palestrina, who entered in 1551 and left in 1555 to go to the Sistine Chapel, and to Giovanni Annunciata, a Florentine, who had already published three books of spiritual madrigals and who, during his sixteen years as master, published further spiritual madrigals, motets, lauds and masses “*secundum formam concilii*,” with which he marks the first step toward a restoration of sacred music in the sense of a Catholic and Roman Renaissance. He remained in office until his death in 1571, the year in which Palestrina returned and remained until his death (1594).
Among the masters who succeeded Palestrina we may recall Ruzzzo Giovanni, Assirio Pacelli, Francesco Soriano, then again V. Benevoli, who had already composed a grand mass in 53 voices for the consecration of Salzburg Cathedral; after Ercole Bernabei and others of lesser note, we find Domenico Castrati in the post of director, remaining from 1715 to 1719, composing various sacred music, including masses, *Salve Regina*, etc. Another illustrious name is that of Niccolò Jommelli, only as coadjutor, then Pietro Guglielmi, Nicola Zingarelli, Valentino Fioravanti, the two Meluzzi and finally Ernesto Bezei, d. 30 Dec. 1946 and succeeded by Armando Antonelli.
IV. C. Libraria. — It is in this choir that we first encounter the name of the young Giannetto Pierluigi, come from Palestrina, who, having taken flight from here as a *puer cantus*, returned in 1561 as *maestro di cappella*. Many other names already cited for the other choirs will be omitted here, such as Francesco Soriano (twice), Annibale Stabile, A. M. Abbatini (three times), Orazio Benevoli, down to Alessandro Scarlatti: at the age of 47 he won the competition announced on 24 July 1707, served for 21 months and resigned immediately after Easter 1709. Another great name is that of Bernardo Pasquini, composer of organ, harpsichord and theatrical music, admired by Queen Christina of Sweden and by Louis XIV, who held the post of organist from 10 Feb. 1664 to 26 Oct. 1704 and was also organist of the Roman Senate and of the basilica of Ara Coeli.
V. Minor Roman Basilicas
1. S. Maria in Trastevere. — The period of greatest renown for this choir was from 1574 to 1709, during which the post of organist was held, in 1607, by Girolamo Frescobaldi, and as masters the young Benevoli (appointed at the age of 20 in 1624), Paolo Agostini (Apr. 1615) who later became master at St Peter’s, Domenico Allegri (1609) and Francesco Foggia (1626–1709).2. S. Lorenzo in Damaso. — Here too, besides the masters, some of whose names have already been cited several times (F. Roselli, master at the Giulia and the Lateran, Abbatini, Foggia, Pitoni, Antonio Bencini, etc.), we find a notable name in the post of organist: Giulio Giorgi, who was retired on 5 Jan. 1766, was replaced, at a salary of one scudo per month, by the fourteen-year-old Muzio Clementi, who left the post nine months later to follow Mr. Beckford to England.
VI. Other churches of Rome
Among these should be mentioned, first of all, the national churches: French, German and Spanish. The first, S. Luigi de’ Francesi, established in 1514, had periods of great brilliance especially in the second half of the 16th and in the 17th century (it will suffice to recall the names of A. Zoilo, the two Nanini, Soriano, Giovannelli, Ugolini, Benevoli, Abbatini, Bernabei, Cifra) and was dissolved, for economic reasons, in 1948. The second, S. Maria dell’Anima, arose in its present form especially through the work of Franz Wirt during the Cecilian restoration in Germany, and had as co-founder and animator the aged Abbot F. Liszt. After Wirt, the directors were F. X. Haberl, the editor of the *Opera Omnia* of Palestrina, Ignaz Richterer, Peter Müller, Ferdinand Haberl, nephew of the preceding F. X., and finally Maestro Franz Zehrer, who still directs II. The third, dedicated to S. Maria di Monserrato, had in the first half of the 19th century the names of an Aldega and the two Capocci. The Chiesa Nuova of S. Maria in Vallicella had in 1700 G. B. Costanzi. The church of the Gesù could boast the name of Zipoli, succeeded by Carpani, Terziani, Meluzzi. For the other churches one can only record here the numerous and painful acts of death of the choirs that have disappeared one after another, like so many lights that are extinguished; among them it is a duty to recall, first of all, that of S. Spirito in Sassia, which could also boast the name of Girolamo Frescobaldi and whose end dates to 1737; those of S. Marco, the Pantheon, S. Maria in Cosmedin, S. Agnese al Circo Agonale (founded by Innocent X), S. Girolamo della Carità, S. Lorenzo in Lucina, the Madonna dei Monti, S. Ignazio, S. Apollinare, etc.VII. Other choirs outside Rome:
I. In Italy
Of the choirs in the rest of Italy, the most celebrated may be said to be, for their antiquity and renown, those of Naples, Florence, Milan and Venice, with Ferrara and Mantua, as well as those of the singers of Padua and Loreto, and other minor ones that we shall merely mention.As *maestro di cappella* at the court of Ferdinand I of Aragon in Naples in the 15th century we find J. Tinctoris, the great theorist and composer who among his treatises left us the earliest dictionary of musical terms (1475).
The choir of the Tuscan court was founded in 1539 by Cosimo I and entrusted to Francesco Bern. Corteccia, of Arezzo, then to Cristoforo Malvezzi and to Luca Bati (after 1571), later to Marco da Gagliano (1609–42) and to Jacopo Peri, who was at once *maestro di cappella* and superintendent of spectacles; Teodulo Mabellini was its last director in 1848. Worthy of special mention is the procession of 1 July 1629 (for the festivities in honor of St Andrew Corsini), in which Girolamo Frescobaldi participated as organist. The choir ceased to exist as such on 27 Apr. 1859, since, with the unification of Italy, it was merged with the musical schools of the Academy of Fine Arts, to become later the Royal Musical Institute, today the Cherubini, by decree of 15 March 1860. Of the Ducal choir of Milan, established between 1471 and 1472 by Galeazzo Maria, the first and principal organizer was Gaspare Van Weerbecke, who on several occasions (1472, 1473) went to Flanders and Burgundy to recruit singers for the choir. With him was another Fleming who would later become *maestro* at the court of Spain, Alessandro Agricola. In a list of July 1474 among the new names are found Josquin Després, Loyset Compère, with three other singers from Cambrai and two from Spain. By mid-1474 the establishment of the Franco-Belgian musicians in Milan was a fait accompli. After a brief lull during the regency of Bona of Savoy, who reduced expenses for the choir, the tradition of Galeazzo was resumed by Lodovico il Moro, who recalled Van
Becke left the papal chapel, where he had transferred (and where he would later settle permanently in 1499, as the star of the Moor waned), and took into his service the great theorist Franchino Gaffurio of Lodi (1484).
At the musical chapel of St. Mark’s in Venice, after the long directorship of Petrus de Fossis (Pierre des Fosses), a Burgundian who remained there for a full 36 years, the illustrious name of another great Fleming, Adriano Willaert, must be remembered. He came from the court of Ladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and served as maestro there from 1527 until his death in 1562. Following him was his great compatriot and pupil Cipriano de Rore, who, however, after a brief Venetian interlude (1563–64), resumed service at the court of Parma, where he had been maestro since 1561 and where he died in 1565.
After de Rore flourished Gioseffo Zarlino, the famous theorist and author of the *Istituzioni harmoniche* (1558), who served as maestro from 1565 until his death in 1590 (during which time the organists included Claudio Merulo, Andrea Gabrieli, and later Giovanni Gabrieli). After him came a few less illustrious names (Baldassarre Donati and Giovanni della Croce, known as Chiozzotto), but one cannot overlook the figure of Claudio Monteverdi (appointed on 19 August 1613), who composed much sacred music (masses, motets, etc., of which only notices remain), and who remained in office until 1643, the year of his death. A few more notable musicians followed, rising from first (and even second) organist to the position of maestro, such as Cavalli (20 November 1668), Legrenzi (23 April 1685), Lotti (2 April 1736), Galuppi (27 April 1767), and then in 1797, the year in which the ducal government of the free Republic of Venice came to an end, the last page of its glorious history, which had lasted more than four centuries, was written.
At Ferrara, in the chapel of the Este court, many already renowned musicians were found, such as Obrecht, Isaac, Desprez, and de Rore—brilliant names that illuminated that court between the 15th and 16th centuries.
At the Antoniana chapel in Padua, which may be considered founded by Fr. Costanzo Porta of Cremona (1565–1567), Giuseppe Partini carried out his fervent activity as a violinist and composer for many years, from 1721 until his death in 1790.
Fr. Costanzo Porta (1574–79) may rightly be called the restorer of the musical chapel of the Holy House of Loreto, of which he was the first maestro. This chapel, established around 1540 following the bull *In comitantibus Angelis Assumptae* (21 October 1507) and a brief *Gloriosae semperque Virginis* by Pope Julius II, saw a succession of directors including the Romans Annibale Zoilo (1584–92) and Antonio Cifra (1609–22), Tommaso Redi of Siena (1731–38), Andrea and Francesco Basili, father and son (1740–77), G. B. Borghi of Macerata (1777–96), Nicola Zingarelli (1796–1805), and others of lesser renown.
2. Outside Italy
First, mention must be made of the chapels at the principal courts of Europe. In France, in the 15th century, Charles V maintained a *souveraine chapelle* in which *d’echant* was sung on feast days; under his successors Charles VI and Louis XI, the Flemish Giovanni Ockeghem served as maestro from 1465 until his death in 1495, followed by Josquin Desprez (1500); among the singers were Loyset Compère and Jakob Arcadelt around the mid-16th century.Under Louis XIII, at the beginning of the 17th century, the chapel, hitherto divided into two choirs that performed polyphony and Gregorian chant respectively, became a single institution, and in 1638 Louis XIV added orchestral accompaniment to the organ. The chapel, closed during the Revolution, was reopened by Napoleon I and finally suppressed in 1830.
The musical chapels of Flanders and Burgundy flourished greatly, where musicians such as G. Binchois and G. Dufay served Philip the Good; at the court of Charles the Bold, A. Busnois (1447); and at the court of Philip the Fair and later Margaret of Austria in Brussels, Josquin Desprez, Pierre de La Rue (1492–1510), and Agricola are still remembered.
In Germany, Orlando di Lasso brought great distinction to the chapel of the Prince-Elector of Munich, where he established a stronghold of Catholic art against the encroaching wave of Protestantism. He devoted 34 years of his life to the role of maestro (from 1560 until his death in 1594) and produced his most important sacred works: masses, motets, penitential psalms, and more.
In Spain, the royal chapel until the time of Philip the Fair and Joanna the Mad was composed of foreign musicians and performed almost exclusively Flemish music (among them Pierre de La Rue and later Alessandro Agricola, who died in Valladolid in 1566). Only with Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand the Catholic, whose respective chapels succeeded the royal chapels of Castile and Catalonia-Aragon, did the practice begin of hiring exclusively national musicians with a distinctly Spanish repertoire. After Isabella’s death (1564), Ferdinand selected the best musicians from the Castilian chapel and united them with his Aragonese chapel: thus arose the royal chapel of Spain, which would reach its zenith under the reigns of Charles V and Philip II, illuminated by the now-famous names of Morales, Guerrero, Victoria, and A. de Cabezón, among others.