Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination

Explores the revival of sixteenth-century music in nineteenth-century Germany, focusing on the reception of Palestrina.

James Garratt explores the revival of sixteenth-century music in nineteenth-century Germany, focusing on the reception of Palestrina by critics, historians, performers and composers. This book will interest scholars, students and devotees of nineteenth-century music, and those interested in nineteenth-century culture, art, architecture, literature and aesthetics, and the early music revival.Focusing on the reception of Palestrina, this bold interdisciplinary study explains how and why the works of a sixteenth-century composer came to be viewed as a paradigm for modern church music. It explores the diverse ways in which later composers responded to his works and style, and expounds a provocative model for interpreting compositional historicism. In addition to presenting insights into the works of Bruckner, Mendelssohn and Liszt, the book offers fresh perspectives on the institutional, aesthetic and ideological frameworks sustaining the cultivation of choral music in this period. This publication provides an overview and analysis of the relation between the Palestrina revival and nineteenth-century composition and it demonstrates that the Palestrina revival was just as significant for nineteenth-century culture as parallel movements in the other arts, such as the Gothic revival.