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Vergine Pura by Palestrina
I have a quick little polyphonic song for you today, 'Vergine pura'. It's one of Palestrina's sacred madrigals, published in 1581. The text is one verse of an 11-verse poem by Petrarch called 'Vergine bella'. Each verse of the poem except the last begins with the word 'Vergine'.

As you'll see and hear, the music is madrigalian style, rather restrained but adapting quite readily to its text on words such as 'pianto' (a tear) and 'allegrezza' (joy).

Some of you may wonder what distinguishes a piece like this as a madrigal as opposed to a motet. The most straightforward reply to the question is that the text is Italian rather than Latin. In addition, we are dealing with a 14th-century poem here, rather than a biblical or liturgical passage.

More subtle, and perhaps less certain, is that this piece exhibits a very tight polyphonic structure wiht very close imitation, and is a bit more active--and, as noted above, more apt to indulge in word-painting--than a typical motet.

What the piece brings up in my mind (apart from the perfection of the writing) is how the musical means used to set love lyrics are similar to those used to set sacred poetry. One crucial clue is the connection of love--either for a lover, as in a secular madrigal; or (as here) for Mary and for Jesus.

This vein of thinking ties back to our madrigal last week, a re-texting of a Monteverdi love-song. In that case the poet of the new sacred text took great care to adapt his poem to the already-existing music. And the music originally adapted for a rather sassy text then served well to depict the shepherds running to see the newborn child.

Another thread is the Song of Songs: Those sexy lyrics seem to adapt easily in the minds and hearts of believers to the expression of a spiritual love and devotion.

So, anyway: I hope you enjoy listening to (and perhaps singing) this lovely piece. 
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