It has long been unclear how much Hans Pfitzner borrowed from Palestrina in his opera (1917) named after this 16th-century composer. Only two borrowings have been identified, whereas four others have remained doubtful. In 1973, the Bayrische Staatsbibliothek received Pfitzner's copy of Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli. This manuscript proves that Pfitzner studied this work much more carefully than scholars hitherto have believed. It includes many marked passages with square brackets and Osthoff shows that these passages were intended to be used in the opera. Pfitzner, however, not only quoted from the Missa Papae Marcelli. In the sketches of his opera, he designated the melody in Act I on "patrem omnipotentem" (sung by the chorus of the angels) as a cantus firmus. Osthoff identifies it as a quotation from the Missa Aspice Domine (a parody mass) and not from the Missa Papae Marcelli as Albert Fleury claimed before. The markings also indicate that Pfitzner borrowed not only melodic and harmonic passages but also techniques, such as falsobordone, parallel tenths in outer parts, and sixteenth-century stereotyped figures including the cambiata and typical cadences. According to Osthoff, the technique of inserting small isolated elements into a new composition is significant for the structural thinking of twentieth-century composers.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Andreas Giger