Palestrina: Prelude to Act I

Main page for Pfitzner’s Palestrina

• This movement opens the opera with music that later is associated with Palestrina’s feelings of nostalgia for a happier time when his creative life and personal life were more fulfilling.
• This movement is scored for only 4 flutes and 4 violins, even though the entire opera requires a large Romantic orchestra. Pfitzner often used chamber textures within the opera, often with an archaic style, to imitate the size and sound of Renaissance ensembles.¹

1.  Peter Franklin, “Palestrina,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed December 11, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000903816.