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Palestrina - Prince of Music
Flavio Colusso directing the Polyphonic Chorus
Directed by	Georg Brintrup
Written by	Georg Brintrup
Produced by	Christopher Janssen Arte
Starring	Renato Scarpa Remo Remotti Giorgio Colangeli Franco Nero
Cinematography	Paolo Scarfó Benny Hasenclever Oliver Kochs
Edited by	Georg Brintrup
Music by	Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Release date	March 15, 2010
Running time	52 minutes
Country	Italy / Germany
Language	Italian

Palestrina - Prince of Music is an Italian/German 2009 music film directed by Georg Brintrup. It's about life and music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca.1525-1594), famous Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition. It was filmed in March 2009, mainly in and around L'Aquila and Rome. Most of the ancient buildings and historical interiors in the city of L'Aquila, that served as locations for the film, were distroyed only a few days after end of shooting by the earthquake of April 6, 2009. Palestrina’s music in the film is directed by Flavio Colusso and the Roman Ensemble Seicentonovecento. The film was also titled The Liberation of Music or Die Befreiung der Musik when released in Germany.

Plot

To achieve artistic and economic independence, Palestrina works with great diplomacy in the shadow of the powerful Roman Catholic Church. Despite strict ecclesiastical rules, he succeeds in modernizing music.

During the time when Protestant Northern Europe separated from the Catholic Church of Rome and when Rome was no longer the center of power, young Giovanni Pierluigi is trained as a choir-boy in the circle of the "Roman School" of polyphony founded by Costanzo Festa. This talented musician - at only 25 - becomes the head of the Cappella Giulia (Julian Chapel) at St. Peter's Basilica. But he is both artistically and economically dependent on the clergy and subject to the moods and whims of the all powerful Popes.

One day he is nominated by Pope Julius III as ‘cantore ponteficio’ for life, the highest position in Rome for a musician at that time. Palestrina feels that he, at the age of thirty, is at the height of his career. However, the next Pope Paul IV, dismisses him. Palestrina is deeply shocked and realizes that the greedy Roman clergy are more interested in secular politics than in the spirituality of music.

This realization haunts the musician and causes his artistic counterreaction. Within a few years he develops a new style in polyphonic art, the genus novus. A balance between word and sound, in which all voices are predominent. Music becomes freer than ever. In this style he composes the famous Missa Papae Marcelli, which, after the Council of Trent, becomes the model for sacred music.

Suddenly Palestrina is back on top. The Jesuits, eager to win back Protestant Northern Europe for the Roman Catholic Church, become very attentive to Palestrina's music and summon him to be the first music teacher at the Collegium Germanicum in Rome. They know that music can reach people much deeper than words, directly to their souls, and that music can bring people back to the "true faith". And they are very successful in this endeavour. Princes, Kings and even the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II want Palestrina as the choir-master of their courts. However, experience has taught him not to become a pawn in the hands of the powerful.

And Palestrina wants to take his destiny into his own hands and maintain his artistic independence. He demands enormous salaries for these positions, since he intends on staying in Rome. In fact, he soon becomes the head of the Cappella Giulia again, and, as the first and only musician, receives the title of composer of the Cappella Pontificia "modulator pontificus". Palestrina becomes the most important musician in the country.

But then, at the peak of his career, the plague and an influenza epidemic take away his two oldest sons and his wife. He is desperate and falls into a deep depression. He wants to give up composing and become a member of the clergy. But strenuousness, ambition and the desire for secularity pursuads him to take another very pragmatic decision: He marries the rich widow of a fur merchant and finally has enough money to publish his scores. At least this means that his work would never be forgotten. Within a few years sixteen books are published with numerous compositions, Palestrina's legacy, his "musical descendants", which still fascinate people today.

Cast

• Domenico Galasso as Iginio
• Renato Scarpa as Monsignore Cotta
• Remo Remotti as Filippo Neri
• Giorgio Colangeli as L. Barré
• Stefano Oppedisano as Annibale
• Claudio Marchione as Cristoforo
• Achille Brugnini as Giacchino
• Franco Nero as D. Ferrabosco
• Pasquale di Filippo as G. Severini
• Bartolomeo Giusti as old Palestrina
• Daniele Giuliani as young Palestrina
• Patrizia Bellezza as Virginia Dormuli
• Francesca Catenacci as Lucrezia Gori

Release and reception

Palestrina - Prince of Music premiered at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome November 15, 2009 It was then shown at "Prix International du Documentaire e du Reportage Mediterraneen" - 15th edition, at 11-th International Television Festival ECO, Ohrid Macedonia, at AsoloArtFilmfestival, at Golden Prague International Television Festival 2010, at L´Aquila International Film Festival, L´Aquila Italy 2010, at - october 16 - 20, 2010, at FIFA - Festival international du film sur l'art, Montreal, Canada 2011

External links

• Palestrina - princeps musicae at IMDb