The Council of Trent was believed to be peak of the Counter-Reformation’s influence on church music in the 16th century. The Catholic Church had spoken out against the perceived abuse of music used in the mass before the Council of Trent ever met to discuss music in 1562. The fueling cry was for reform from many of the ecclesial figures was the compositional technique popular in the 15th and 16th, using musical material and even accompanying texts from other works such as motets, madrigals and chansons, with several voices singing different lyrics in different languages made the text difficult to understand. The Council of Paris and the Council of Trent were both making attempts to restore a sense of sacredness to the church setting. But the Council of Trent did not only focus on the style of music, but the attitudes of worship during the mass. This brings the composer Guillame Dufay to the forefront of this discussion.
Guillame Dufay was born near Cambrai, in Hainaut. He was a choir by at the Cambrai Cathedral of Notre Dame in 1409-1412. Dufay spent a large part of his adult life living and traveling Europe. He also was a singer in the Papal choir in Rome 1428 and 1436. He later became the leading composer of the culturally important Burgundian court, in this court it is said to have been the birth place of Renaissance of the 15 century, and his patrons extend to the highest level of Church and State including France, the Netherlands, and Italy. Thus his development was subject to a great number of influences. Dufay’s musical style grew from the late medieval French tradition (Ars Nova), and early Renaissance from which he gathered while traveling throughout Italy.
Dufay was one of the last composers to make use of the medieval technique such as isorhythm, but the first to use harmonies, phrasing and expressive characteristics of the early Renaissance. The compositions within larger genres (masses, motets, and chansons) are quite similar to one another. What made them renowned was largely due to what was perceived as perfect control of the forms in which he worked. Additionally, it was his gift for writing a memorable and sing-able melody. As stated before there are not marked differences in these categories, plainchant settings where the chant is paraphrased in the cantus or the upper voice, free-composed settings of liturgical, non-liturgical or ceremonial texts and cantus firmus including motets and The Ordinary of the Mass. Coincidently, there are works where the categories are blurred. For example the isorhythmic motet “Supremum est mortalibus” and “Christe, redemptor omnium”, uses the fauxbourdon which allows a monotonous quality of the parallel chords causing the liturgical lyrics to be understood.
The cantilenas such as “Inclita stella maris” present complex rhythmic surfaces comparable to those of the isorhythmic motet. More than half of Dufay’s remaining works consists of chant settings where one of the voices follows the other in text and phrasing with a small amount of embellishment. The melody is then supported by the tenor in which the contra tenor expands the texture.
As with many other composers you will see sacred and secular music, Dufay wrote secular pieces that showed influences from Busnois and Ockeghem. In his secular music there where typically the use of rondeau form and the rhythmic and melodic differentiation between voices are less. He was more drawn to the smooth polyphony which became an aggressive style fifteen years later.
In objection to this style of music before the Council of Trent took place was Pope John XX II, according to him the rhythmic flexibility of the Ars Nova promoted “wantonness at the expense of devotion.” He declared in the papal bull that the “notes of small values were disturbing the divine office.” This document gives evidence of the churches ongoing complaints and issues about the role of music in worship. The pope argues that the plainchant melodies should be left intact.
In the Council of Trent they would not approve of Dufay’s music simply because he added so much of what they considered to be notes of the devil, meaning the dissonance in the music and the minor thirds presenting the sound that displeased the church officials and Popes. His music was influenced by the early Renaissance technique, and he was considered the fore-most Franco-Flemish composer of the fifteenth century. Being that in Italy where polyphonic singing was allowed in his music creating richer harmonies, the council would appeal to that form or style they were used to, the homophonic singing was appeasing to the high priests with each part moving by step with each other everything is the same. I believe that the Council of Trent wouldn’t agree with Dufay’s way of depicting the mass arrangements and the style he chose to elaborate upon, because it was new and they didn’t approve of new things just as there are discussion still today on the style of music sung in today’s worship services. For example the hymns are first and foremost in our worship services, meaning that those words are used to address our praise and adoration unto God. But in most rewrites of hymns the sentimental language in which God talks with us and comforts us, “Be not afraid, for I am always with you,” are comforting gestures made by God unto us. And there may be times to sing such songs but during Mass it’s considered to be a time of worship. Another problem that persists is the contemporary music that is originally written for a solo artist or a choir to perform. And many of the elders believe that a good hymn has music that is steady and predictable so everyone can join in.
To conclude as the Popes in the Councils believed and the priest of today as well, Mass is meant to take us to the threshold of heaven, a glimpse of glory and partaking in the worship of the spheres of heaven itself. And that the new music and styles won’t work not because they are bad but because they aren’t good and true enough. They believe that worship that takes us to the “throne of glory” needs to be Glorious.
