Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass: Kyrie

Music AppreciationFeatures
Written By Edward Wolfe

The Mass is the most solemn service of worship of the Roman Catholic Church, and portions of it have been set to music down through the centuries. Some of these settings have been so beautiful and memorable that they are performed in the concert hall even today.

The Roman Catholic Mass consists of sung portions and recited or spoken portions, and the Proper and the Ordinary of each. The Proper consists of texts that vary from day to day throughout the church year, while the Ordinary consists of texts common to every Mass.

The five portions of the Mass most frequently heard in concerts today comprise part of the Ordinary of the sung portion of the Mass. These sections have been treated by composers as five movements of an extended work. They are:

  1. Kyrie

  2. Gloria

  3. Credo

  4. Sanctus

  5. Agnus Dei

Listen now to the “Kyrie” movement from Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s (c. 1525 – 1594) famous Pope Marcellus Mass.

The Latin lyrics are: “Kyrie eleison; Christe eleison; Kyrie eleison.” They translate to: “Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy.”

Edward Wolfe

Edward Wolfe has been a fan of Christian apologetics since his teenage years, when he began seriously to question the truth of the Bible and the reality of Jesus. About twenty years ago, he started noticing that Christian evidences roughly fell into five categories, the five featured on this website.
Although much of his professional life has been in Christian circles (12 years on the faculties of Pacific Christian College, now a part of Hope International University, and Manhattan Christian College and also 12 years at First Christian Church of Tempe), much of his professional life has been in public institutions (4 years at the University of Colorado and 19 years at Tempe Preparatory Academy).
His formal academic preparation has been in the field of music. His bachelor degree was in Church Music with a minor in Bible where he studied with Roger Koerner, Sue Magnusson, Russel Squire, and John Rowe; his master’s was in Choral Conducting where he studied with Howard Swan, Gordon Paine, and Roger Ardrey; and his doctorate was in Piano Performance, Pedagogy, and Literature, where he also studied group dynamics, humanistic psychology, and Gestalt theory with Guy Duckworth.
He and his wife Louise have four grown children and six grandchildren.

https://WolfeMusicEd.com
Previous

My letter to Philip
Next

Great Writers on Music