Reading Michele Pesenti’s Tulerunt Dominum meum

Abstract

For his example of Phrygian mode in his 1547 Dodecachordon, Heinrich Glarean chose a motet first published in Petrucci’s 1503 Motetti B, Michele Pesenti’s Tulerunt Dominum. Glarean’s effusive response to Pesenti’s motet indicates that he had not only studied but had also heard the work; he marvels at the “great emotion and innate sweetness” that conveys so well its subject, which begins with Mary Magdalene’s lament at the empty tomb of Jesus and culminates in an expression of hope. Pesenti’s artistry lies in his ability to acknowledge, structurally and aesthetically, three distinct textual moods while creating an elegant musical structure based on motivic development, manipulation of mode and texture, rhythmic pacing, and the precise nature and placement of significant musical events. Pesenti’s large-scale planning is manifest in his versatile and carefully plotted use of a melodic paradigm that he transforms at strategic moments throughout the motet. It paints text, it carries a hidden message, and it creates musical highpoints. Finally, in a conceptual variation using all the main motives of the motet, its musical climax identifies the central message of the text. A close reading of Tulerunt Dominum reveals the artistry that caught Glarean’s ear: its composer was a thoughtful interpreter of text and a masterful handler of musical form, mode, and rhetoric—someone who could create a motet that would receive attention on its own merits.