# Questions about Masses



## gellio

Hi All -

I'm fairly new to Masses. I see most of them have the following form:

I. Kyrie
2. Gloria
3. Credo
4. Sanctus
5. Benedictus
6. Angus Dei

My ignorant question here is do all masses share the same texts? Do all of Schubert's and Mozart's Masses, for example, contain the same text set to different music?

I seems to me to be so, but I just want to make sure.

Not very versed in the Masses, and I'm really diving into Masses by different composers. I have loved Beethoven's _Missa Solemnis_ for ages, but I've just listened to Schubert's _Mass No. 6_, which I absolutely ADORE. I've also listened to a couple of Mozart's. It seems to me they all have the same text.


----------



## cheregi

To quote Wikipedia, "the mass is the central liturgical rite in the Catholic church" - it is a standardized prayer which always (as far as I know?) has the same text. Many medieval and renaissance composers are mostly known today for their dozens of different musical settings of the mass, because the mass was sung so often that there was a great need for variety. It can be a bit jarring at first to get used to hearing the same words over and over again when listening to masses... Later composers like Schubert, Beethoven, and Mozart (again, as far as I know - and I know less of this music than I do of earlier eras) mostly didn't need to write masses as a primary source of income, so they wrote fewer, and of course the musical style itself changed almost beyond recognition.


----------



## gellio

cheregi said:


> To quote Wikipedia, "the mass is the central liturgical rite in the Catholic church" - it is a standardized prayer which always (as far as I know?) has the same text. Many medieval and renaissance composers are mostly known today for their dozens of different musical settings of the mass, because the mass was sung so often that there was a great need for variety. It can be a bit jarring at first to get used to hearing the same words over and over again when listening to masses... Later composers like Schubert, Beethoven, and Mozart (again, as far as I know - and I know less of this music than I do of earlier eras) mostly didn't need to write masses as a primary source of income, so they wrote fewer, and of course the musical style itself changed almost beyond recognition.


Thank you. I listened to a bunch of Mozart Masses in a row while working Friday, so I wasn't really paying attention to the words, just the music, and each absolutely sounded like an entirely different work.

Thank you. Very helpful reply.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Not all of them do. There are masses that don't contain any standardized Latin text such as Schubert's German mass, Brahms' German requiem (a practice dating back to the German masses of Michael Haydn). There are also "missae breves" (singular: "missa brevis"), which are short and concise in musical content and contain simplified versions of the ordinarium Latin text, usually composed for mass services that are too short that there isn't much time for music. For example, the credo movements of Mozart's missa brevis in B flat K.275 or Michael Haydn's Missa tempore quadrigesimae MH553 start with the text "patrem omnipotentem" right off the bat. There is also the "missa senza credo" which omits the credo (or gloria). For example, Michael Haydn's acapella masses for advent, Missa quadragesimalis MH552 and Missa tempore quadrigesimae MH553 both lack gloria movements.
Latin requiem masses contain sections of the "proprium of the mass" such as introitus, sequentia, communion, but not certain sections of the "ordinarium of the mass" such as gloria, credo. The final section "dona nobis pacem" is also replaced with "dona eis requiem".
There are also "works for a feast day or evening prayer" such as psalms, vespers, which contain different texts such as dixit dominus, laudate pueri, magnificat.


----------



## Tasto solo

hammeredklavier said:


> For example, the credo movements of Mozart's missa brevis in B flat K.275 or Michael Haydn's Missa tempore quadrigesimae MH553 start with the text "patrem omnipotentem" right off the bat. There is also the "missa senza credo" which omits the credo (or gloria). For example, Michael Haydn's acapella masses for advent, Missa quadragesimalis MH552 and Missa tempore quadrigesimae MH553 both lack gloria movements.


Any recording or performance which starts a Credo with "patrem omnipotentem" is doing it wrong. In certain regions or dioceses it was the convention for the first line of the Gloria and Credo to be intoned according to the old gregorian chant. I guess this was done in the past by a member of the clergy, but nowadays it is usually a member of the choir or one of the soloists. Hence, the composer's work started with the second line, which, in the case of the Gloria is "et in terra pax". Most modern performers get this right but occasionally I come across ill-informed performances where it starts mid-sentence! Certain places seem to have abandoned this convention. For instance, Dresden, which witnessed some of the finest mass settings of the first half of the 18th century (Zelenka!) always had musical settings which started from the first line. In Vienna, on the other hand, most masses were "intoned".

Regarding the missa brevis, I am not aware that these changed the text (it is the core liturgy, a composer cannot simply edit it!). Normally the composer was given a time frame and if was very short then they just did not repeat the words much, did not have separate solo arias and sometimes in choruses even had two different sentences being sung at the same time.

Regarding the masses without a Credo, this was not explicitly to save time but because on feast days for the celebration of certain saints, the liturgy does not require it, perhaps because a litany is sung instead (another part of the liturgy).

Regarding masses without a Gloria, this is not to save time but because during certain periods of the liturgical year a gloria is not included in the liturgy. There may be some regional variations but where I live in central Europe is omitted during Lent and Advent. Clearly this was the case as mentioned above for Michael Haydn (the latin for Lent is "tempore quadrigesimae" - hence his masses for that time - see the post above - had no Gloria).


----------



## hammeredklavier

Tasto solo said:


> Any recording or performance which starts a Credo with "patrem omnipotentem" is doing it wrong. In certain regions or dioceses it was the convention for the first line of the Gloria and Credo to be intoned according to the old gregorian chant. I guess this was done in the past by a member of the clergy, but nowadays it is usually a member of the choir or one of the soloists. Hence, the composer's work started with the second line, which, in the case of the Gloria is "et in terra pax".


Good point. The phrases "credo in unum deum", "gloria in excelsis deo" are sung in solo in the beginning of their respective movements kind of like an "antiphon". Though, in a number of missae breves of Mozart and Michael Haydn, they're not set to music in the score, for practical reasons I suppose.


----------



## gellio

This is great information. You are all so helpful. I’ve listened to masses here and there (namely a few) but never really thought about or paid attention to the content or meaning of a mass. I really appreciate you all chiming in here.

I do have a few follow up questions:

Was the mass played from start to finish without breaks, or was it broken up during the service according to the different segments of a mass? 

Is the performance of a mass typical in services even today? I grew up Episcopal and we never had mass performances in church.

Mozart was Catholic, Bach was Lutheran - would their masses contain the same text (apart from the differences you all noted above in the shorter masses)?

Thank you.


----------



## SanAntone

In classical music there are at least three kinds of mass settings:

1. liturgical in nature - Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque
2. concert in nature - Classical period - to the present
3. special masses - requiems and others

The liturgical masses were used for worship services and used the actual text of the mass, and there were conventions/restrictions imposed on the composers by the Church. Besides the text of the "Ordinary" there were often motets for processions, graduals, offertories, and other sections between the five main sections, as well as the "Proper" which were special texts associated with a feast day or added according to the liturgical calendar.

Originally chant was used for these non-composed sections, but some composers would write chant styled newly composed music. Actually, originally the entire mass was sung to chant, only later did composers begin to write them, and for a while, just one section here and there with a mass being cobbled together from various places. Machaut's _Messe de Nostre Dame_ (1366) is considered the first mass entirely written by a single composer, except as I said those non-Ordinary sections.

The concert masses were generally not used during worship services and the composers could take liberties with the texts and music.

Requiems had special texts added and some removed, and could be both liturgical or concert types.


----------



## Guest002

gellio said:


> This is great information. You are all so helpful. I've listened to masses here and there (namely a few) but never really thought about or paid attention to the content or meaning of a mass. I really appreciate you all chiming in here.
> 
> I do have a few follow up questions:
> 
> Was the mass played from start to finish without breaks, or was it broken up during the service according to the different segments of a mass?


It would be broken up. The priest has to read a Gospel somewhere or other; he usually gets to preach interminably for a while, too. The business of a mass (i.e., the church service) involves censing the alter, readings from the old and new testament, processing for the Gospel reading, taking a collection (nearly forgot that part, but the church certainly doesn't!) and potentially singing hymns. The bits of the mass you've listed get slotted into that whole business.

So the Kyrie, for example, is usually sung right at the start of the service as the priest censes the altar. The Sanctus and Benedictus usually come during the prayer of consecration (i.e., just before the people start actually taking communion). Since 'benedictus' means 'blessed [is he who comes in the name of the Lord]' and is a quotation from what the crowds cheered at Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, that's often taken to be "the moment" when transubstantiation takes place and the bread/wine become the body/blood of Christ. You will often see devout Catholics (and Anglo-Catholics, which generally have a better musical and liturgical sense these days than post-Vatican 2 Catholics) cross themselves as the choir starts singing the Benedictus, for example.

I guess my point is that a mass is, above everything, a church service. It can be spoken. It can be chanted. It can be congregationally-sung (hymns, etc). It can be choir-sung. The bits you listed just happen to be the bits where the liturgical texts are pretty standardised and therefore composers were able to set them to music.

That said, there are musical masses which were clearly never intended for liturgical use (no-one is ever going to sit through a 2+ hour church service to listen to Verdi's Requiem, for example). But most of the ones by Bach and Mozart and so on were for a little bit of musical sprinkling throughout an otherwise-wordy church service.



gellio said:


> Is the performance of a mass typical in services even today? I grew up Episcopal and we never had mass performances in church.


Well, you did. It's just that you _said_ the words! A mass isn't a mass if you don't do all the bits in the right order, so all churches that do masses or holy communion would at least _say_ things like 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, Heaven and Earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the Highest" (which is the 'Sanctus') and 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' (which is the Benedictus) and so on.

So all the words you hear set by various composers in their 'musical settings of the mass' would still be _said_ today, even by low-church goers (I think).

But to _sing_ them as composers set them: well, that takes a trained choir and (potentially) some instrumentalists. For that, you need money. So, you'll find wealthy churches can run to that (i.e., cathedrals and such like). You'll also find 'high' churches tend to take music more seriously than low churches, so (at least in the UK and Australia, the two countries I know about), you'll find Anglo-Catholic churches sing a mass every week (though the Credo is seldom sung, as people want to go home before lunch is burned!). Good Catholic churches (again, cathedrals, the wealthier ones and so on) would also tend to have sung masses every week.

On a lot of church notice boards in the UK, for example, you'll see something like 'Holy Communuion 9.00AM; High Mass 10.30AM'. So you'll get an entirely spoken communion/mass in the morning (for those in a hurry and anyone who can't stand music, I guess!) and a second service which covers exactly the same ground liturgically speaking, but uses a composer's setting of the mass at various places rather than having the words simply read out loud by the priest or congregation.



gellio said:


> Mozart was Catholic, Bach was Lutheran - would their masses contain the same text (apart from the differences you all noted above in the shorter masses)?
> 
> Thank you.


Pretty much. The fundamental difference between Catholics and Protestants about the mass (or communion) is whether the bread and wine are commemorative in nature or actually turn into the essence of the blood and body of Christ. Catholics think transubstantiation is a thing (where the substance of the bread and wine change to become the bodily presence of Christ). Protestants think the bread and wine are there purely as remembrance of the Last Supper. So there's a profound theological difference between them (as hundreds of years of war tend to indicate!), but that doesn't alter what words are said and in what order by either 'team'. And that means both liturgies are pretty much identical, and therefore composers would tend to set the same parts of them regardless.

You will, however, find that whilst Lutheran masses by Bach (for example) are quite rich musically for the Kyrie and the Gloria, they go a bit flat and boring for the rest of it: because there's less interest in Lutheran circles in, for example, singing elaborate settings of the Benedictus... because, for them, Christ is not actually coming right now into the bread and wine. So, their musical settings of those bits of the service will tend to be less elaborate. On the whole. It varies by composer and time-period as much as anything, of course.


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> 1. liturgical in nature - Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque
> 2. concert in nature - Classical period - to the present
> 3. special masses - requiems and others
> The concert masses were generally not used during worship services and the composers could take liberties with the texts and music.


From what I understand, 18th-century "Neapolitan" [*] orchestral masses were used during worship services, and there were "specifications or regulations" in terms of length and instrumentation imposed on the composers by their employers (the clergy).

Mozart wrote to his former teacher Padre Martini in 1776:
"Our church music is very different from that of Italy, since a Mass with the whole Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Epistle sonata, the Offertory or motet, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei must not last longer than three quarters of an hour. This applies even to the most Solemn Mass spoken by the Archbishop himself. Special study is required for this kind of composition, particularly as the Mass must have a full contingent of instruments-trumpets, drums and so forth."

This is illustrated in the Mozart biopic 'Wolfgang A. Mozart (1991)':





This is also why concluding fugues were shortened or omitted in missae breves. Homophonic passages (such as ones in Bach chorales) generally tend cover a lot more text than polyphonic ones in a given amount of time.

[*] By "Neapolitan" I mean:


hammeredklavier said:


> "...one of the complaints about Bach was that his cantatas were too operatic. More than any other composer he introduced the Italian opera style into church music, something his predecessor Johann Kuhnau had always resisted." <Bach Cantatas Website: "Bach and Opera">
> I think people tend to overlook the fact Bach was interested in bringing operatic elements into other types of music, and was pretty forward-looking in this regard - the development of the "Neapolitan mass", the "stilus ecclesiasticus mixtus" or mixed church style, which combined traditional contrapuntal choruses with coloratura solo arias and ensembles, which theoreticians such as J.J. Fux and M. Spiess opposed.


----------



## gellio

You all are amazing. Thank you. You are so versed and educated in this matter. I definitely said the Mass. Many times. This is all very interesting and has really added to my interest in the Masses. I spent part of the day getting to know some of Haydn's and his 10th is amazing. 

I'm going to keep plugging away. 

Thank you all for your time and answers. 

I am here to learn.


----------



## ArtMusic

Yes, the church mass tends to have the same/similar texts for a region and faith. Now this naturally changes with time. It's like asking if the Bible has the same texts everywhere.


----------



## gellio

ArtMusic said:


> Yes, the church mass tends to have the same/similar texts for a region and faith. Now this naturally changes with time. It's like asking if the Bible has the same texts everywhere.


Honestly, I felt so ignorant starting this post. I did try to find the answers myself, but had no luck. I really appreciate you all chiming in. This is so fascinating.


----------

