Pfitzner's opera about Palestrina's divinely inspired act of composing the Pope Marcellus Mass upholds the musical tradition of the Wagnerian music drama and the philosophical tradition of Schopenhauer. A quotation from the Pope Marcellus Mass, the Kyrie eleison head-motive, provides the structural and philosophical cornerstone of the work. Pfitzner's theory of composition based on divine musical inspiration receives its finest realization in the first act of the opera, which focuses on Palestrina's reception of that head-motive.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller