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Inmusic history, theRoman School was a group ofcomposers of predominantly church music, inRome, during the 16th and 17th centuries, therefore spanning the lateRenaissance and earlyBaroque eras. The term also refers to the music they produced. Many of the composers had a direct connection to theVatican and thepapal chapel, though they worked at several churches; stylistically they are often contrasted with theVenetian School of composers, a concurrent movement which was much more progressive. By far the most famous composer of the Roman School isGiovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose name has been associated for four hundred years with smooth, clear,polyphonic perfection. However, there were other composers working in Rome, and in a variety of styles and forms.
While composers had almost certainly been working in Rome continuously for the thousand years since the time ofGregory the Great, the development of a consistent style around the middle of the 16th century, due in part to the musical requirements of theCounter-Reformation, led to their being grouped together by music historians under this single label.
The music of the Roman School can be seen as the culmination of a development of polyphony through the infusion of music of theFranco-Netherlandish school during the last hundred years. Franco-Netherlandish composers had long been coming to Italy to live and work—Josquin,Obrecht,Arcadelt, and many others made the long journey, and their musical style was decisive on the formation of the Italian styles. Under the guidance of the Vatican, and with theSistine Chapel Choir being one of the finest of the time, it was perhaps inevitable that the stylistic center of sacred polyphony would turn out to be Rome.
TheCouncil of Trent, which met from 1545 to 1563, had a significant impact on the music of the Roman School: indeed it can be argued that these reforms in theRoman Catholic Church, which were part of the Counter-Reformation,defined the music of the Roman School. The Council of Trent recommended that sacred music, especially for use in church, be written in a dignified, serious style. The Council allowed polyphony—a common misconception is that they banned it outright, but this is false—however they did require that text which was sung be clearly understandable. In addition, while they did not ban the use of secular melodies as source material formasses andmotets, such use was discouraged.
The combination of the reforms of the Council of Trent with the presence of the extremely talented composers inheriting the Franco-Netherlandish style, was the production of a body of music which has sometimes been held to represent the peak of perfection ofRenaissance polyphonic clarity. The subject matter of "16th CenturyCounterpoint" or "Renaissance Polyphony" as taught in contemporary college music curricula is invariably the codified style of the Roman School, as it was understood byJohann Fux in the early 18th century. It is important to recognize, though, that the "Palestrina style" was not the only polyphonic style of the time, though it may have been the most internally consistent. The polyphonic style of Palestrina may have been the culmination of a hundred years of development of the Franco-Netherlandish style, but it was one of many streams in the late 16th century, and significantly contrasts with the music of the Venetian school to the north, as well as the music being produced in France and England at the same time.
Other composers living and working in Rome, while not considered members of the Roman School, certainly influenced them. The most famous of these is probablyLuca Marenzio, whose madrigals were wildly popular in Italy and elsewhere in Europe; some of the composers of the Roman School borrowed his expressive techniques, for instanceword painting, for occasional use in a liturgical setting.
While the Roman School is considered to be a conservative musical movement, there are important exceptions. Rome was the birthplace of theoratorio, in the work ofGiovanni Francesco Anerio andEmilio de' Cavalieri; the score for Cavalieri'sRappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo is the earliest printed score which uses afigured bass. The style is similar to the style of monody being developed inFlorence at approximately the same time; indeed there was considerable competition between composers in those two musical centers. The success ofRappresentatione was such that the monodic style became common in much Roman music in the first several decades of the 17th century.
Later composers of the Roman School includedGregorio Allegri, composer of the famousMiserere (c.1630). This piece was guarded closely by the papal chapel; it was considered so beautiful that copies were not allowed to circulate. A favorite story involves the 14-year-oldMozart, who made the first illegal copy by transcribing it from memory after hearing it only twice. Many of the later composers of the Roman School continued to write in the polyphonic style of the 16th century, known then as thestile antico, or theprima pratica, in distinction to the newer style ofmonody and thestile concertato which defined the beginning of theBaroque era.
Members of the Roman School, including some who were active in Rome for only part of their careers, are as follows:
