Musical Settings of Mass

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Introduction

Musical Settings of Mass. The liturgical texts for the Mass have been given musical settings from earliest times (see Chant). Some elements of the Mass have texts that vary from day to day (Proper of the Mass); others use the same texts year round (Ordinary of the Mass). Some parts are recited on a single tone or spoken, and others are traditionally sung to a distinct melody. Pope Gregory I collected many of the monophonic (unaccompanied, unharmonized) chants used in the liturgy during his reign (590-604).

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Settings of the Proper

In Gregorian chant, as this collection plus later additions came to be known, the melodies of the Proper are particularly important, especially the Introit (Entrance), Gradual, Alleluia, Tract (Psalm), Offertory, and Communion. Even in the earliest polyphony (multipart music), about 900 to about 1250, settings of the Proper were most common. In these, the chant melody was used as a cantus firmus (fixed melody) to which additional voice parts were added. An important early collection of polyphonic Graduals and Alleluias is the Magnus Liber Organi (1175?), written in Paris by the liturgical composer Leonin (flourished late 12th century) and expanded by his successor Pérotin (flourished 1200). About 1250, polyphonic composition based on chants of the Proper greatly diminished.

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Settings of the Ordinary

The first example of a complete setting of the Mass Ordinary—Kyrie (Lord Have Mercy), Gloria, Credo (Creed), Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy), Agnus Dei (Lamb of God)—was the Messe de Tournai (1300?). Although composing individual items of the Ordinary was more common, another complete cycle from the mid-14th century was done by the French composer-poet Guillaume de Machaut.

Between 1400 and 1600 the term Mass came to signify a polyphonic setting of the entire Ordinary, and such settings were the principal large-scale genre of musical composition. Important composers such as the French Guillaume Dufay, the French-born Josquin Desprez, and the Italian Giovanni da Palestrina contributed to the vast repertory. Numerous techniques were devised to link all five movements, usually relating them to a chant or even a secular cantus firmus (see Music, Western). After 1600 the Mass lost its central musical importance, but gained in vocal and instrumental forces. A landmark of the baroque era (1600?-1750?) was Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B Minor (1738), a monumental piece in the style of a cantata, too long for an ordinary service. From the classical era (1750?-1820?) important Masses were contributed by the Austrians Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Ludwig van Beethoven regarded his Missa solemnis (1824) as his greatest effort. The genre was continued in the 19th century by the Austrian Franz Schubert, the Hungarian Franz Liszt, the French Charles Gounod, and, in particular, the Austrian Anton Bruckner. Masses were written in the 20th century by the French Francis Poulenc, the Russian-born Igor Stravinsky, the Czech Leoš Janáček, and the English Ralph Vaughan Williams. Masses in popular and regional musical idioms from the mid-20th century include the Missa Luba, in Congolese style, by Father Guido Haazen.

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Requiem Masses

The Mass for the Dead, or Requiem Mass, omits the Gloria and the Credo, but adds a Sequence, or hymn, Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), set to possibly the most famous of all chant melodies. Composers of Requiems include the Flemish Johannes Okeghem (15th century), Mozart (1791), the Italian Giuseppe Verdi (1874), and the French Hector Berlioz (1837) and Gabriel Fauré (1887). The German Requiem (1868) of Johannes Brahms was set to his own nonliturgical text, and the War Requiem (1962) by the English composer Benjamin Britten used both the traditional text and poems by Wilfred Owen.

See also Choral Music.