In order to avoid an absolute deadlock, which might have resulted in the sacrifice of ecclesiastical harmony, and have inflicted a death-blow on modern music, the committee agreed to refer their difficulties to Palestrina.  On the principle of solvitur ambulando, he was invited to study the problem, and to produce a trial piece which should satisfy the conditions exacted by the Congregation as well as the requirements of the artists.  Literally, he received commission to write a Mass in sober ecclesiastical style, free from all impure and light suggestions in the themes, the melodies and the rhythms, which should allow the sacred words in their full sense to be distinctly heard, without sacrificing vocal harmony and the customary interlacing of fugued passages.  If he succeeded, the Cardinals promised to make no further innovation; but if he failed, Carlo Borromeo warned him that the Congregation of Reform would disband the choral establishments of the Pontifical Chapel and the Roman churches, and prohibit the figured style in vogue, in pursuance of the clear decision of the Tridentine Council.

This was a task of Hercules imposed on Palestrina.  The art to which he had devoted his lifetime, the fame which he had acquired as a composer, the profession by which he and all his colleagues gained their daily bread, depended on his working out the problem.  He was practically commanded to discover a new species of Church music, or to behold the ruin of himself and his companions, the extinction of the art and science he so passionately loved.  Truly may his biographer remark:  ’I am deliberately of opinion that no artist either before or since has ever found himself in a parallel strait.’

We have no exact record of the spirit in which he approached this labor.[210] But he was a man of sincere piety, a great and enthusiastic servant of art.  The command he had received came from a quarter which at that period and in Rome had almost divine authority.  He knew that music hung trembling in the balance upon his failure or success.

[Footnote 210:  In the Dedication of the Mass of Pope Marcello to Philip II. in 1567 Palestrina only says that he had been constrained by the order of men of the highest gravity and most approved piety to apply himself ad sanctissimum Missae sacrificium novo modorum genere decorandum, and that he had performed his task with indefatigable pains and industry (Baini, op. cit. vol. i. p. 280).  But it is noteworthy that of the three Masses furnished for the approval of the congregation, the first was entitled Illumina oculos meos, and that an anecdote referring to this title relates Palestrina’s earnest prayers for grace and inspiration during the execution of the work (ibid. p. 223, note.)]