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MASS, IN
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See also:MASS, IN See also:MUSIC: I. Polyphonic Masses.—The See also:composition of musical settings of the Mass plays a See also:part in the See also:history of music which is of See also:special importance up to and including the 16th See also:century. As an See also:art-See also:form the musical Mass is governed to a See also:peculiar degree by the structure of its See also:text. It so happens that the supremely important parts of the Mass are those which have the smallest number of words, namely the See also:Kyrie, important as being the opening See also:prayer; the Sanctus and See also:Benedictus, embodying the central acts and ideas of the service; and the A gnus Dei, the prayer with which it concludes. The 16th-century methods were specially fitted for highly See also:developed music when words were few and embodied ideas of such important emotional significance or finality that they could be constantly repeated without losing force. Now the texts of the Gloria and Credo were more voluminous than any others which 16th-century composers attempted to handle in a continuous See also:scheme. The See also:practical limits of the See also: 2. Instrumental Masses in the Neapolitan Form.—The next definite See also:stage in the musical history of the Mass was attained by the Neapolitan composers who were first to reach musical coherence after the monodic revolution at the beginning of the 17th century. The See also:fruit of their efforts came to maturity in the Masses of See also:Mozart and See also:Haydn. By this See also:time the resources of music were such that the long and varied text of the Gloria and Credo inevitably either overbalanced the scheme or met with an obviously perfunctory treatment. It is almost impossible, without See also:asceticism of a radically inartistic See also:kind, to treat with the resources of instrumental music and See also:free See also:harmony such passages as that from the Crucif xus to the Resurrexit, without an emotional contrast which inevitably throws any natural treatment of the Sanctus into the background, and makes the A gnus Dei an inadequate conclusion to the musical scheme. So unfavourable were the conditions of 18th-century music for the formation of a See also:good ecclesiastical style that only a very small proportion of Mozart's and Haydn's Mass music may be said to represent their ideas of religious music at all. The best features of their Masses are those that combine faithfulness to the Neapolitan forms with a contrapuntal richness such as no Neapo- titan composer ever achieved. Thus Mozart's most perfect as well as most ecclesiastical example is his extremely terse Mass in F, written at the See also:age of seventeen, which is scored simply for four-part See also:chorus and See also:solo voices accompanied by the See also:organ with a largely See also:independent See also:bass and by two violins mostly in independent real parts. This scheme, with the addition of a pair of trumpets and drums and, occasionally, oboes, forms the normal See also:orchestra of 18th-century Masses developed or degenerated from this See also:model. Trombones often played with the three See also:lower voices, a practice of high antiquity surviving from a time when there were See also:soprano trombones or cornetti (Zincken, a sort of See also:treble See also:serpent) to See also:play with the sopranos. 3. Symphonic Masses.—The enormous dramatic development in the symphonic music of See also:Beethoven made the problem of the Mass with orchestral See also:accompaniment almost insoluble. This makes it all the more remarkable that Beethoven's second and only important Mass (in D, Op. 123) is not only the most dramatic ever penned but is, perhaps, the last classical Mass that is thoughtfully based upon the See also:liturgy, and is not a See also:mere-musical setting of what happens to be a liturgic text. It was intended for the See also:installation of Beethoven's friend, the See also:archduke See also:Rudolph, as See also:archbishop of See also:Olmutz; and, though not ready until two years after that occasion, it shows the most careful See also:consideration of the meaning of a church service, no doubt of altogether exceptional length and pomp, but by no means impossible for its unique occasion. Immense as was Beethoven's dramatic force, it was equalled by his See also:power of See also:sublime repose; and he was accordingly able once more to put the supreme moment of the music where the service requires it to be, viz. in the Sanctus and Benedictus. In the Agnus Dei the circumstances of the time gave him something special to say which has never so imperatively demanded utterance since. See also:Europe had been shattered by the See also:Napoleonic See also:wars. Beethoven read the final prayer of the Mass as a " prayer for inward and outward See also:peace," and, giving it that See also:title, organized it on the basis of a contrast between terrible See also:martial sounds and the See also:triumph of peaceful themes, in a scheme none the less spiritual and sublime because those who first heard it had derived their notions of the horror of See also:war from living in See also:Vienna during its See also:bombardment. Critics who have lived in See also:London during the See also:relief of See also:Mafeking have blamed Beethoven for his See also:realism. See also:Schubert's Masses show rather the See also:influence of Beethoven's not very impressive first Mass, which they easily surpass in See also:interest, though they rather pathetically show an See also:ignorance of the meaning of the Latin words. The last two Masses are later than Beethoven's Mass in D and contain many remarkable passages. It is evident from them that a dramatic treatment of the Agnus Dei was " in the See also:air"; all the more so, since Schubert does not imitate Beethoven's realism. 4. Lutheran Masses.—Music with Latin words is not excluded from the Lutheran Church, and the Kyrie and Gloria are frequently sung in See also:succession and entitled a Mass. Thus the Four See also:Short Masses of See also:Bach are called short, not because they are on a small scale, which is far from being the See also:case, but because they consist only of the Kyrie and Gloria. Bach's method is to treat each clause of his text as a separate movement, alternating choruses with See also:groups of arias; a method which was independently adopted by Mozart in those larger masses in which he transcends the Neapolitan type, such as the great unfinished Mass in C See also:minor. This method, in the case of an entire Mass, results hi a length far too great for a Roman Catholic service; and Bach's B minor Mass, which is such a setting of the entire test, must be regarded as a kind of See also:oratorio. It thus has obviously nothing to do with the Roman liturgy; but as an independent setting of the text it is one of the most sublime and profoundly religious See also:works in all art; and its singular perfection as a See also:design is nowhere more evident than in its numerous adaptations of earlier works. The most interesting of all these adaptations is the setting of the words: " Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi.—See also:AMEN." Obviously the greatest difficulty in any elaborate instrumental setting of the Credo is the inevitableanti-See also:climax after the Resurrexit. Bach contrives to give this See also:anti-climax a definite See also:artistic value; all the more from the fact that his Crucifixus and Resurrexit, and the contrast between them, are among the most sublime and directly impressive things in all music. To the end of his Resurrexit chorus he appends an orchestral ritornello, summing up the material of the chorus in the most formal possible way, and thereby utterly destroying all sense of finality as a member of a large See also:group, while at the same time not in the least impairing the force and contrast of the whole—that contrast having ineffaceably asserted itself at the moment when it occurred. After this the See also:aria " Et in spiritum sanctum," in which the next dogmatic clauses are enshrined like See also:relics in a See also:casket, furnishes a beautiful decorative design on which the listener can repose his mind; and then comes the voluminous ecclesiastical See also:fugue, Confiteor See also:union baptisma, leading, as through the See also:door and See also:world-wide spaces of the Catholic Church, to that See also:veil which is not all darkness to the See also:eye of faith. At the words " Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum " the music plunges suddenly into a slow See also:series of some of the most sublime and mysterious modulations ever written, until it breaks out as suddenly into a vivace e See also:allegro of broad but terse design, which comes to its climax very rapidly and ends as abruptly as possible, the last chord being carefully written as a short See also:note without a pause. This gives the utmost possible effect of finality to the whole Credo, and contrasts admirably with the coldly formal instrumental end of the Resurrexit three movements further back. Now, such subtleties seem as if they must be unconscious on the part of the composer; yet here Bach is so far aware of his reasons that his vivace e allegro is an arrangement of the second chorus of a church See also:cantata, Gott See also:man lobet See also:dick in der Stille; and in the cantata the chorus has See also:introductory and final symphonies and a See also:middle See also:section with a da See also:capo/ 5. The See also:Requiem.—The Missa See also:pro defunctis or Requiem Mass has a far less definite musical history than the See also:ordinary Mass; and such special musical forms as it has produced have little in See also:common with each other. The text of the See also:Dies Irae so imperatively demands either a very dramatic elaboration or none at all, that even in the 16th century it could not possibly be set to continuous,,,music on the lines of the Gloria and Credo. Fortunately, however, the Gregorian See also:canto See also:fermo associated with it is of exceptional beauty and symmetry; and the great 16th century masters either, like Palestrina, See also:left it to be sung as See also:plain-See also:chant, or obviated all occasion for dramatic expression by setting it in versicles (like their settings of the Magnificat and other See also:canticles) for two groups of voices alternatively, or for the See also:choir in See also:alternation with the plain chant of the priests. With See also:modern orchestral conditions the text seems positively to demand an unecclesiastical, not to say sensational, style, and probably the only instrumental Requiem Masses which can be said to be great church music are the sublime unfinished work of Mozart (the antecedents of which would be a very interesting subject) and the two beautiful works by See also:Cherubini. These latter, however, tend to be funereal rather than uplifting. The only other artistic See also:solution of the problem is to follow See also:Berlioz, See also:Verdi and See also:Dvorak in the See also:complete renunciation of all ecclesiastical style. See also:Brahms's Deutsches requiem has nothing to do with the Mass for the dead, being simply a large choral work on a text compiled from the See also:Bible by the composer. (D. F. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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