The Renaissance Mass

Overview

The musical setting of the High Mass of the Roman Catholic Church became the most important compositional genre of the Renaissance. Composers confined themselves to five parts of the Mass, which itself comprised more than 20 different parts. These five parts are from what is known as the Ordinary, the permanent content of the Mass that is celebrated every day. Three types of Renaissance masses were composed: the cantus firmus mass, the paraphrase mass, and the imitation mass. Josquin Desprez was the master of the paraphrase mass. His Ave maris stella Mass provides an example of Renaissance polyphony. The Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the Council of Trent had a profound impact on the nature of Catholic liturgical music in general and the Mass specifically. Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass epitomizes the new compositional style that emerged from those developments.