While Johann Joseph Fux's treatise Gradus ad Parnassum recommends Palestrina as a model of the contrapuntal style, it does not include any music by Palestrina. Fux's own Missa di San Carlo (also known as the Missa Canonica) was long considered a masterpiece of the old style. Palestrina's Missa ad Fugam, which was known to Fux, most likely served as a model for this work. Scarlatti and Albrechtsberger also wrote canonic masses. These eighteenth-century compositions reflect the composers' knowledge of the Palestrina style as observed from his Missa ad Fugam.

Works: Johann Joseph Fux: Missa di San Carlo (463-65); Alessandro Scarlatti: Messe e Credo a 4 ad Canones (465, 467); Johann Georg Albrechtsberger: Missa Canonica (465, 468-69).

Sources: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa ad Fugam (passim).

Index Classifications: 1700s

Contributed by: Felix Cox