# Mozart's Incomplete Masterpiece - The C Minor Mass (K. 427)



## Ferrariman601

The "Great" Mass in C Minor has long been a favorite of mine. Written between 1782 and 1783, Mozart's most ambitious mass setting features some of the most vivacious melodies and vocal acrobatics from the master from Salzburg, but the piece was left incomplete. 

What exists of the work today is as follows:

The Kyrie and Gloria are complete.
The Credo has two extant movements - Credo in unum Deum and Et Incarnatus Est. These movements are drafted with complete vocal parts and bass, but most of the orchestral accompaniment is fragmentary or altogether missing. 
The Offertory features fragmentary scores of the Sanctus, Hosanna, and Benedictus. As with the Credo, the vocal parts are complete and some instrumental parts are missing, at least in Mozart's hand, although the double choir for the Hosanna fugue has been lost. 
As for the Agnus Dei, there is no trace of that, nor a Dona Nobis Pacem.

Although it is quite common to hear the piece performed in its 'authentic' fragmentary state, there have been attempts made at completing the work. In the early 1900s, musicologist G.A. Schmitt published a reconstruction that drew upon the "Missa Longa" (K. 262), as well as Kyrie fragments K. 322 and K. 323, to complete the Credo, reconstructed the Hosanna's double choir, and recast the Kyrie as the Agnus Dei. More recently, Dr. Robert Levin's 2004 reconstruction is even more ambitious. After painstaking analysis of dozens of Mozart fragments contemporary to the C Minor Mass, as well as borrowing from the cantata "Davidde Penitente" (K. 469), which was mostly composed from music originally written for the C Minor Mass, Levin completes the Credo with his own settings of "Crucifixus," "Et Resurrexit," "Et Unam Sanctam," and "Et Vitam Venturi," borrowing from Davidde Penitente for "Et in Spiritum Sanctum." Rounding off the work, Levin, like Schmitt, reconstructs the double choir in the Offertory and fills out missing instrumentation and returns to Davidde Penitente for the "Agnus Dei," recasting the aria "Tra l'Oscure Ombre Funeste." Unlike Schmitt, however, Levin's finale does not recast the Kyrie, rather, he finishes with a 4-voice semi-fugal and highly contrapuntal flourish for "Dona Nobis Pacem," again based on contemporary Mozartean material. 

Sorry to be so lengthy, but what I've just detailed above is why this piece has intrigued me for so long - it is, by any measure, brilliant. However, Mozart leaves it to us unfinished. I have a penchant for unanswerable questions, and, in terms of music, I feel that this may be one of the greatest such question ever. What are your thoughts about K. 427? Which versions do you find most convincing? Have you even pieced together your own version of how you think it should be performed? I hope we can have some scintillating discussion about this one!


----------



## Kieran

This is the one he promised to write if he married Costanza, isn't it? Then mysteriously he left it unfinished. I wonder why he didn't finish it. Was the commission withdrawn, so he said, "meh?" It's a brave person who dares to approach these unfinished works and presume to complete them. Even a great composer might tremble in the face of such a task. I haven't heard any finished attempts at this, but Robert Levin is a sound Mozart scholar and performer. That's a very good write up of it. But Mozart's last two masses, and his two most ambitious and glorious masses, both left unfinished. The Requiem we understand, but this...


----------



## elgar's ghost

Completely agree. I've said before that it was as much a shame that Mozart failed to complete this as it was the Requiem - the C-minor mass if completed would have been stunning.


----------



## hpowders

I prefer the C Minor Mass to the Requiem. Unlike the latter, Mozart had plenty of time to finish it. It's fantastic as is. I can't even begin to imagine what it would have been, if Mozart did finish it. One of his greatest works. No doubt about it.

My rule is if it starts out W.A. Mozart K. 4..., then it must be magnificent.


----------



## PlaySalieri

It's a phenomenal work - and for me I prefer it to the requiem - incomplete as it is.


----------



## Ferrariman601

Yes, this is the one for Costanze. As far as I'm aware, there was never a commission for the mass, so it was purely Mozart's own motivation. 

You seriously need to take a look at Levin's completion. For me, despite its flaws in some areas, I feel like it's the best reconstruction out there now.


----------



## Kieran

Ferrariman601 said:


> Yes, this is the one for Costanze. As far as I'm aware, there was never a commission for the mass, so it was purely Mozart's own motivation.
> 
> You seriously need to take a look at Levin's completion. For me, despite its flaws in some areas, I feel like it's the best reconstruction out there now.


It's a mystery, isn't it? Why didn't he finish it? If it were any other composer, except Schubert maybe, we might think he ran out of ideas. But if anyone was teeming with a surfeit of rich ideas, it was Wolfgang. It doesn't seem to have been a work he threw himself into, in order to complete it in a hurry. According to wiki, he wrote it between July 1782 and October 1783. That's tardy! But no other great works seem to have been commissioned that nudged it aside. Could he have become bored with it? Can he have just left it behind, and run out of enthusiasm? It's a great stand-out oddity in his catalogue...


----------



## poconoron

Ferrariman601 said:


> Yes, this is the one for Costanze. As far as I'm aware, there was never a commission for the mass, so it was purely Mozart's own motivation.
> 
> You seriously need to take a look at Levin's completion. For me, despite its flaws in some areas, I feel like it's the best reconstruction out there now.


Thanks to your info, I have ordered the Levin completion from Amazon. Can't wait to get it and give a listen.


----------



## Ferrariman601

The only thing that I've ever thought about regarding why Mozart never finished the C Minor Mass is that Mozart may have undergone a spiritual transformation of sorts after his marriage - the sort of transformation that saw him move away from the tenets of the church and toward the egalitarianism and individualism espoused by the Masons. When we look at his catalogue, we see the last complete mass (K. 337) in 1780, and, aside from the C Minor Mass, Mozart doesn't write another mass setting until 1791 when he received the commission for the Requiem. To me, that indicates shifting interests for him - he writes more symphonies, operas, program music, and Masonic pieces and fewer religious works.


----------



## Kieran

That sounds about right, actually, and it's unfortunate for us...


----------



## PlaySalieri

Ferrariman601 said:


> The only thing that I've ever thought about regarding why Mozart never finished the C Minor Mass is that Mozart may have undergone a spiritual transformation of sorts after his marriage - the sort of transformation that saw him move away from the tenets of the church and toward the egalitarianism and individualism espoused by the Masons. When we look at his catalogue, we see the last complete mass (K. 337) in 1780, and, aside from the C Minor Mass, Mozart doesn't write another mass setting until 1791 when he received the commission for the Requiem. To me, that indicates shifting interests for him - he writes more symphonies, operas, program music, and Masonic pieces and fewer religious works.


It's a shame the the mass was not commissioned - if there was money riding on it he would have finished


----------



## DavidA

I would say he wrote it for Constanze to sing and as the bits she sang were finished he left it there! Probably meant to finish it sometime but other commissions came along. And then his untimely death!
Pity - it is a stupendous work as it is. Who knows what we would have had had he completed it.


----------



## poconoron

Ferrariman601 said:


> The only thing that I've ever thought about regarding why Mozart never finished the C Minor Mass is that Mozart may have undergone a spiritual transformation of sorts after his marriage - the sort of transformation that saw him move away from the tenets of the church and toward the egalitarianism and individualism espoused by the Masons. When we look at his catalogue, we see the last complete mass (K. 337) in 1780, and, aside from the C Minor Mass, Mozart doesn't write another mass setting until 1791 when he received the commission for the Requiem. To me, that indicates shifting interests for him - he writes more symphonies, operas, program music, and Masonic pieces and fewer religious works.


That sounds like as good a theory as any.


----------



## chesapeake bay

I hadn't listened to this in a long time but I found this version







and have really enjoyed it. Excellent performance and recording.


----------



## Manxfeeder

Ferrariman601 said:


> To me, that indicates shifting interests for him - he writes more symphonies, operas, program music, and Masonic pieces and fewer religious works.


Do you think toward the end of his life he was returning to religious works? Under the influence of Handel, he wrote the Ave Verum, the priest's chorus in The Magic Flute, and the Requiem with a new sense of choral writing. I wonder what direction he would have gone after that.


----------



## TxllxT




----------



## hpowders

I wonder why he never finished it? He had to know it was terrific. It's not like he had no time because he had to watch "American Idol" on TV.


----------



## regenmusic

Maybe he applied his mind to gambling, not saying this as a joke, but he did gamble at the end of his life and he needed money.


----------



## Ferrariman601

Manxfeeder said:


> Do you think toward the end of his life he was returning to religious works? Under the influence of Handel, he wrote the Ave Verum, the priest's chorus in The Magic Flute, and the Requiem with a new sense of choral writing. I wonder what direction he would have gone after that.


I'm not sure if this theory has (or doesn't have, for that matter) much going for it. Yes, Mozart did start to return to writing religious works toward the end of his life, but, by all accounts, his final illness was a sudden and swift one. I doubt that Mozart would have even become aware of the gravity of his situation until he was within a few days of death.


----------



## Ferrariman601

@Txllxt And this is one of the best performances of it that I've seen yet! John Eliot Gardner and Nicholas Harnoncourt are, to me, the best Mozart interpreters alive today.


----------



## poconoron

TxllxT said:


>


This is my favorite version.


----------



## hpowders

poconoron said:


> This is my favorite version.


It's okay, but my heart belongs to the Sir Colin Davis version.


----------



## poconoron

hpowders said:


> It's okay, but my heart belongs to the Sir Colin Davis version.


:lol::lol: That's actually my 2nd favorite............


----------



## Bulldog

My favorite recording comes from Raymond Leppard with the incomparable Ileana Cotrubas. Colin Davis and Gardiner are also exceptional.


----------



## Ferrariman601

I don't think a version like this has ever been recorded, but, I've put together my own personal compilation to put this piece in a "complete" state:

The Kyrie and Gloria as Mozart left them,
the Credo with Mozart's Credo in Unum Deum and Et Incarnatus Est, followed by the Crucifixus, Et Resurrexit, Et in Spiritum Sanctum, and Et Unam Sanctam from K. 139 and the Et Vitam Venturi from Robert Levin's 2004 K. 427 completion,
Mozart's Sanctus, Hosanna, and Benedictus (with the double choir reconstructed, various recordings exist in which the double choir is reconstructed),
and finally, the Agnus Dei and Dona Nobis Pacem from Robert Levin's completion. 

Anybody else have their own take on how they like to listen to K. 427?


----------



## hpowders

Ferrariman601 said:


> The only thing that I've ever thought about regarding why Mozart never finished the C Minor Mass is that Mozart may have undergone a spiritual transformation of sorts after his marriage - the sort of transformation that saw him move away from the tenets of the church and toward the egalitarianism and individualism espoused by the Masons. When we look at his catalogue, we see the last complete mass (K. 337) in 1780, and, aside from the C Minor Mass, Mozart doesn't write another mass setting until 1791 when he received the commission for the Requiem. To me, that indicates shifting interests for him - he writes more symphonies, operas, program music, and Masonic pieces and fewer religious works.


Perhaps he had this anti-epiphany after one too many "YES, DEAR!" responses to his beloved bride from holy matrimony.


----------



## trazom

Kieran said:


> This is the one he promised to write if he married Costanza, isn't it? Then mysteriously he left it unfinished. I wonder why he didn't finish it. Was the commission withdrawn, so he said, "meh?" It's a brave person who dares to approach these unfinished works and presume to complete them. Even a great composer might tremble in the face of such a task. I haven't heard any finished attempts at this, but Robert Levin is a sound Mozart scholar and performer. That's a very good write up of it. But Mozart's last two masses, and his two most ambitious and glorious masses, both left unfinished. The Requiem we understand, but this...


It's also not the only piece Mozart dedicated to his wife that he didn't complete, there's also the violin sonata k.403; but he didn't finish several violin sonatas that were likely going to be published together as a group along with k.403, including the odd A major one that starts with a prelude and ends in a fugue for piano and violin.


----------



## Pugg

hpowders said:


> It's okay, but my heart belongs to the Sir Colin Davis version.


My heart also :tiphat:


----------



## Manxfeeder

Ferrariman601 said:


> I'm not sure if this theory has (or doesn't have, for that matter) much going for it. Yes, Mozart did start to return to writing religious works toward the end of his life, but, by all accounts, his final illness was a sudden and swift one. I doubt that Mozart would have even become aware of the gravity of his situation until he was within a few days of death.


I didn't mean to say he became religious because he was facing death. It just seems like he was returning to that form when death took him.


----------



## Animal the Drummer

Another vote for Gardiner from me. As it happens I'm not his biggest overall fan, finding his Bach technically impressive but soulless. However, I reckon this work suits his style of musicmaking very well indeed.


----------



## hpowders

Pugg said:


> My heart also :tiphat:


Then your heart is obviously in the right place!


----------



## Pugg

hpowders said:


> Then your heart is obviously in the right place!


According to my doctor (whom I rate highly ) it still is


----------



## dieter

hpowders said:


> It's okay, but my heart belongs to the Sir Colin Davis version.


Dear h
I too love the Davis above many others. This mass was one of my earliest Mozart pieces, age 15, a Concert Hall recording. I remember with love and fondness that my father put the record on LOUD on the morning of my 16th birthday. 
By the way, have you watched the you tube Shosta 4?


----------



## Pawelec

I have my own theory of why Mozart didn't finish K. 417a.

You see, this was intended to thank the God for his marriage and Wolfgang, when he started writing K. 417a, already knew that Constanze was pregnant, so this can be seen as a prayer for the child's health as well. _Et incarnatus est_, where Mozart stopped writing the Creed, is about Christ being born in human body and sounds mellow and soft like a lullaby. According to the letters this was also written as the last part of the whole K. 417a.

What happened after Mozart wrote _Et incarnatus est_ is the most terrible tragedy a young married couple can go through. Mozart and Constanze went for their late honeymoon after little Raimund was born, and left him in Salzburg with Leopold and Nannerl. Somehow the communication between Leopold and Wolfgang failed (maybe a letter wasn't delivered, we don't know that), so Wolfgang and Constanze came back to Salzburg 5 months later expecting to meet their beloved child.

Raimund fell ill and died three months before they came back to Salzburg. I don't think I would be able to continue writing a thanksgiving mass right from the part praising a childbirth after suddenly getting to know about the death of my own child.


----------



## PlaySalieri

Animal the Drummer said:


> Another vote for Gardiner from me. As it happens I'm not his biggest overall fan, finding his Bach technically impressive but soulless. However, I reckon this work suits his style of musicmaking very well indeed.


I have a nice story about the Gardiner.
20 years ago I gave the tape to a hungarian friend (in budapest) - she and her mother listened to it and next day came to me with tears in their eyes saying it had re-affirmed their belief in god.


----------



## Rach Man

I am more inclined to listen to instrumental classical music than vocal works. But I just realized that I own the Mass in C minor (Gardiner) and when I listened to it I was blown away. It truly was fantastic.

I do have a question, though. Do churches ever use the great composers works in their actual mass or service? I realize that getting the personal to perform these works may be difficult for many small churches. But do any of the larger churches use the entire score of some of the religious musical masterpieces?


----------



## hpowders

Rach Man said:


> I am more inclined to listen to instrumental classical music than vocal works. But I just realized that I own the Mass in C minor (Gardiner) and when I listened to it I was blown away. It truly was fantastic.
> 
> I do have a question, though. Do churches ever use the great composers works in their actual mass or service? I realize that getting the personal to perform these works may be difficult for many small churches. But do any of the larger churches use the entire score of some of the religious musical masterpieces?


That's a good question. It seems to me that Mozart's C minor Mass and the Haydn Late masses are a bit too "theatrical" to be used as serious Church masses. Of course, I could be wrong.


----------



## Star

This is such a great masterpiece we should just be thankful for what we have! But why didn't he finish it?


----------



## ArtMusic

The opening mezzo-soprano aria is wonderful.


----------



## Marc

In 1782, Mozart didn't have a permanent job position anywhere and he had to make money.

Composing church music wasn't his job anymore, after leaving Salzburg. And he deliberately left Salzburg, because he wanted to compose operas for the royal court, hoping that the emperor would fancy his music and would appoint him as court composer.
Completing a mass that didn't guarantee any income was a useless thing to do, given that fact that he needed to earn money for his family-to-be.

He knew that KV 427 was a quality piece though, so he re-used a large part of it for the cantata _Davide penitente_, which was commissioned by the Wiener Tonkünstler Sozietät. Again: an assignment to earn money.

Mozart never really had a permanant job position with a guaranteed salary high enough to compose just whatever he wanted to. And he willingly moved to Vienna, the centre of opera music, because he preferred to gain money with operas instead of church music. If he had wanted to be 'safe', he just could have nodded to the Salzburg archbishop and compose church music for the rest of his life, with a guaranteed income.


----------



## Vinyl

Sylvia McNair's Et Incarnatus Est is one of my favourite moments in world history.


----------



## Marc

Vinyl said:


> Sylvia McNair's Et Incarnatus Est is one of my favourite moments in world history.


That's a beautiful 'review'  ... my only problem is that I find the 'Et incarnatus est' Mozart's least inspired movement of the entire Mass. (I do realize that many listeners will not agree with me at all. )


----------



## Star

Marc said:


> That's a beautiful 'review'  ... my only problem is that I find the 'Et incarnatus est' Mozart's least inspired movement of the entire Mass. (I do realize that many listeners will not agree with me at all. )


Definitely not!


----------



## Marc

Star said:


> Definitely not!


Definitely not what?
That I don't realize...?
That many listeners do not agree with me?



Yes, it's a beautiful and sweet melody, but to me the piece almost sounds as a proof that Mozart somehow got bored with it, making it an ordinary old-fashioned showing off Italianate opera aria with many cute vocal exercises on the vowel 'a', without trying to express the meaning of the religious text, unlike many other parts of this fascinating composition.

Just my tuppence worth of course.


----------



## smoledman

Would any of you trade 1 or 2 of the Haydn Quartets for a completed C-Minor mass? Because when you consider the year he wrote the mass(1782), that's the same time he started on the 6 'Haydn' quartets. So there would be a cost.


----------



## PlaySalieri

smoledman said:


> Would any of you trade 1 or 2 of the Haydn Quartets for a completed C-Minor mass? Because when you consider the year he wrote the mass(1782), that's the same time he started on the 6 'Haydn' quartets. So there would be a cost.


What a question.
I would see all of Haydn's quartets burn to preserve 1 movt alone.


----------



## Guest

stomanek said:


> What a question.
> I would see all of Haydn's quartets burn to preserve 1 movt alone.


Depends on which movement. For the Kyrie, maybe.


----------



## smoledman

The trouble is the mass wasn't written for a commission and Mozart needed income, hence the shelving. Composers in 1782 did not have the luxury of 'writing for themselves' and thus we were cheated.


----------



## Guillet81

Even incomplete, the C minor Mass remains one of the all-time great works of music. Let us be grateful for Mozart's works, even when they are fragmentary.


----------



## staszeko

Just first few opening bars is enough to make me thrilled, terrified and happy. For me the question is not why hasn't he completed it, but where he got such brilliant musical ideas from?


----------



## hpowders

What a shame Mozart never finished this magnificent work!!


----------



## jdec

Sacrilege for some, but I find more "divinity" in Mozart's Great C minor mass (and the Requiem for that matter) than in Bach's B minor mass, which I love too.


----------



## hpowders

Mozart's Great C minor Mass simply reinforces the fact that nobody wrote more beautifully for the soprano voice than Mozart.

Simply astonishingly beautiful!


----------



## jdec

hpowders said:


> Mozart's Great C minor Mass simply reinforces the fact that nobody wrote more beautifully for the soprano voice than Mozart.
> 
> Simply astonishingly beautiful!


I couldn't agree more.


----------

