I love choral music more than most things - singing it, listening to it, talking about it, humming it, thinking about it while drinking orange juice, etc. I began to take a serious interest in choral music as a young teen, and I haven’t seen my way clear to stop enjoying it in the intervening time, so I have simply continued to aggressively enjoy it.
If you have spent any amount of time dabbling in choral music, you may have noticed that a pretty respectable percentage of The Good Stuff is found in settings of the ordinary of the Mass, from the liturgy of the Catholic church. I am deeply fascinated by mass settings. Most of them share the same texts, in some form or other: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus-Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. Many of the great composers, having worked in the church, have some type of mass setting in their catalog. I find it endlessly interesting to hear so many different artistic perspectives and musical languages employed to interpret these ancient words of the church.
Since I am a bit odd, I thought it would be fun to engage in a silly little exercise, in which I choose some of my favorite mass movements from across the centuries and put together a little Blog Mass. It will not be very cohesive, what with the inevitable whiplash involved in jumping hither and yon amongst musical epochs. My methodology for this was not overly scrupulous. In short: I chose music that I like, or in some cases have personal connections with; I avoided repeating composers; and I tried to include a wide variety of composers spanning the early-to-modern spectrum. Even with these generous parameters, I found it surprisingly difficult to narrow down the list, and by necessity, many bangers (forgive me) were left on the outside looking in. I have embedded performance videos, so that you may enjoy each piece as you read.
Enough with the pleasantries. Let us proceed.
Kyrie
For the opening movement, I must start with Josef Rheinberger’s Mass in E Flat, written for unaccompanied double choir. It just might be my favorite mass ever written. Dr. Mark Bartel is responsible for my first exposure to this wonderful work while I was singing in the Wichita Chamber Chorale under his direction in 2017. I immediately fell in love with it. The expansive lush harmonies, the gorgeous melodic themes repeated again and again across voice parts, the seamless interplay between choirs - it’s all perfect. I could have easily chosen multiple movements from this work for this little project, but I had to limit myself to one. The opening Kyrie movement is probably the most well-known part of this work, for good reason. It begins hushed and reverent, slowly expanding and developing throughout. It has no business being as brilliant as it is; the main melodic motif is almost entirely stepwise - just the E-flat scale, dressed up with a flat 7. But the way he puts it all together is utterly masterful in its relative simplicity.
This rendition by Voces8 is interpreted perfectly, and the configuration of one voice to a part allows you to hear the individual lines with great clarity. One of the best sections of the entire work happens between 2:55 and 3:20, when Alto 1 begins the motif, handing it off to Tenor 1, followed by the same exchange between Bass 1 and Soprano 1, culminating in a piercing soprano A flat. Perfection.
Gloria
20th-century French composer Francis Poulenc is well-known in the choral world for his large choral-orchestral work entitled “Gloria,” which takes the Gloria text (often a singular movement) and splits it into six movements to comprise a large work. Lesser known is his Mass in G Major, written for unaccompanied choir. The Gloria movement from this Mass setting is especially fun. It is about as different from the Rheinberger Kyrie in style and affect as a piece can be. This Gloria is unmistakable in its “20th centuryness,” with mixed meter, sometimes-strident dissonances, unwieldy voice leading, parallel movement that would make Bach cringe, and a rip-roaring baritone line that spans a range one half step shy of two octaves, often crossing above tenor and alto lines. Softer, more sparse soli sections are interspersed throughout the middle section, where the text implores the Lamb of God to have mercy. The whole thing is a thrilling ride and a study in dynamic and textural contrast. It mercifully ends on a satisfyingly consonant tonic B major chord.
Credo
There are plenty of fine Credos out there, but this one from Mozart’s Mass in C Major (colloquially known as his Coronation Mass) is thrilling from start to finish. The tempo is set at a spritely Allegro molto, and the choir blazes their way through the Nicene Creed, buoyed by blazing sixteenth note violin passages. The only real reprieve from the breakneck pace is the reverent and reflective Adagio section on Christ’s crucifixion and burial, before immediately returning to Tempo I at the mention of “Et resurrexit.” There are some lovely solo moments sprinkled throughout, which provide contrast to the massive full-chorus sound that defines most of the movement.
One of the most unforgettable and exciting experiences of my life was singing this work in Vienna with a local orchestra after my senior year of college.
Sanctus
This movement is taken from Gabriel Faurés Requiem in D Minor. I love this piece so much that I convinced my wonderful bride to walk down the aisle to it. (It didn’t take much convincing - she has great taste). I think it’s simply one of the most beautiful pieces ever written. The exquisite violin solo does the heavy lifting here. The vocal lines are all monophonic and simple. The climactic “Hosanna in excelsis!” introduced by tenor and bass is a wonderful moment, and the Voces8 men deliver it here with enough enthusiasm and resonance to bore a hole through granite. I love the orchestration in this rendition. The organ, harp, understated strings, and horns provide a perfectly warm and comfortable foundation to allow the voices and solo violin to shine.
Benedictus
In Mass settings, the Benedictus is sometimes included as part of the Sanctus, and sometimes designated as its own movement. In Beethoven’s formidable Missa Solemnis, it is technically part of the Sanctus movement; in fact, it comprises a large majority of the movement. However, there is enough of a stylistic separation between the Sanctus and Benedictus sections of this movement to warrant giving it its own section of this Post. (Mostly, this just allows me to include more music. Thank you.)
This piece is mostly written in a slow lilting 12/8 meter. The full chorus basically acts as accompaniment for yet another gorgeous, soaring solo violin. Most of the heavy vocal work is done during some incredibly demanding polyphonic sections handled by the four soloists. The soprano solo line in particular requires the negotiation of some sustained high notes that must still be sung sensitively to avoid compromising the mood of the movement. It’s a very difficult piece to perform well, but Harnoncourt and his merry band of capable musicians pull it off. Note: the performance below is the entire Sanctus movement; Benedictus begins at 5:00.
Agnus Dei
We close with an Agnus Dei setting for 4 unaccompanied voice parts from (in my humble opinion) the king of the English Renaissance, William Byrd. Hundreds of years before Rheinberger was writing the gorgeous imitative polyphony found in the Kyrie above, Byrd and his 16th-century pals were laying the foundation with stunning pieces like this. This setting is relatively unassuming and sparse, but the hushed and reserved tone fits the subject matter well. Here, Stile Antico, whose bread and butter is Renaissance music, handle it like the pros they are.
Bonus Track
It would be sinful to write a Post highlighting great Mass settings and omit Bach, so we will end with Brother Johann. Another major highlight of the college trip I mentioned above was the chance to hear world-class early music ensemble Collegium Vocale Gent perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor at Musikverein, one of the world’s premier concert halls. Often, “Dona Nobis Pacem” is just the end of the Agnus Dei movement, but in the B minor mass, Bach split the Mass up into 27 separate movements, leaving the simple three-word sentiment, “Grant us peace,” as the masterwork’s majestic finale. It feels like an important enough sentiment right now to justify hearing it from both Byrd and Bach. Here is John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Monteverdi Choir.
Thank you for reading and listening. Good music is good.