# What are the Happiest Sounding Masses?



## regenmusic

Which masses sound the most vibrant and happy?





Mozart - Missa Brevis in C, K. 317 [complete] (Coronation Mass)





W. A. Mozart - KV 66 - Mass in C major "Dominicus Messe"


----------



## Woodduck

Something in the Classical period - Haydn or Mozart. Hard to believe they took all that original sin, blood sacrifice, and eternal damnation for unbaptized infants stuff seriously when a cheerful D-Major "Kyrie" would suffice.


----------



## Krummhorn

Simply love the Mozart Coronation Mass. As a church organist we used parts of this for our church services (Kyrie, Gloria mostly). Performed the entire Mass at St. Peter's Basilica (Rome) in 1992 - choir of 50 voices and the Vatican pipe organ - a most wonderful experience of my life.


----------



## Pugg

Vivaldi's: Gloria is a good one to start .


----------



## SixFootScowl

This is a pretty happy sounding mass:


----------



## hpowders

Many of Haydn's Late Masses are happy and extroverted; at the very least they have some uplifting, extroverted sections within.


----------



## Dirge

Guillaume DUFAY: Missa "Se la face ay pale" (1450s)
:: Munrow/Early Music Consort of London [EMI/Virgin '73]





 (tracks 3-7)

This is an outgoing and happy mass, downright festive in Munrow's hands. Dufay uses the tenor of his own secular song (a recording of which, in four variants, is included on the album) as the cantus firmus for the entire work; the song is thought to be a wedding song, which would account for the prevailing high spirits. If Missa "Se la face ay pale" comes across from a composition standpoint as freer and more spontaneous, less rigorously prescribed and by-the-book than other Renaissance masses of the period, that's an illusion of the "it's so complex, it's simple" variety meant to trick unsuspecting Renaissance rubes such as myself into liking the music. Unlike most masses, this one has a certain amount of drama to it, with the Gloria and the Credo building to climaxes of sorts. It's all very exciting by cloistered Renaissance standards, and it must have raised some eyebrows among conservative monks of the day.

Munrow throws in some instruments here and there, discreetly in some places, not so discreetly in others, and in a somewhat fanfare-like manner at the end of some movements. This practice is verboten in the chaste and pure musical times that we live in, but it's certainly not counter to the spirit of this particular mass. Personally, I don't think that the instruments are necessary, but it doesn't bother me that they're present-and I miss them when they're not there when I'm listening under the influence, which is most of the time. Other accounts of the Mass-Guerber/Diabolus in Musica [Alpha] and Kirkman/Binchois Consort [Hyperion] being the best of them on record-are more refined and technically immaculate (but no more architecturally sound) than this one, but they sound relatively cautious in approach and much less festive in temperament. Munrow and company throw caution to the wind and play the Mass for the masses. Indeed, if I were introducing a newbie to the wonderful world of Renaissance masses, this would be the work and the recording that I'd begin with.


----------



## TxllxT

Happier you cannot get!


----------



## hpowders

Mozart Great Mass in C minor.

So much of Mozart's religious writing is cheerful.

Also Haydn's late masses contain some very extroverted music.


----------



## hpowders

Oh no! Wrong thread!!! :lol:


----------



## Francis Poulenc

Obviously the Holzbauer Mass in C Major, in my opinion the greatest "happy" mass ever created.


----------



## Pugg

Francis Poulenc said:


> Obviously the Holzbauer Mass in C Major, in my opinion the greatest "happy" mass ever created.


It really sounds good, those trumpets, thanks for sharing.


----------



## lluissineu

As many have prevously said Haydn masses and first Mozart masses are very easy to listen. To me the paukenmesse (Haydn ) and The spatzenmesse (Mozart) are two of my favourites, apart from The Great mass.

Pugg has mentioned Vivaldi's Gloria. I'd add The other Gloria (RV 588).

Handel oratorios have many good and vibrant moments, but they're not masses (as The Glorias).


----------



## Tasto solo

A lot of the Mozart, Haydn and Holzbauer Masses listed here so far are nice but they are really superficially happy (like a lot of music of the classical period) and not so much deeply (and spiritually) uplifting. Besides Bach (surprising that the B minor mass and the infectiously delightful mass in G BWV 236 have not been mentioned) one of the most accomplished composers for happy and spiritually uplifting music was Jan Dismas Zelenka. Due to the loss of many historical records there is sadly a lot of misinformation about him around on the web (e.g. that he was only called upon to compose requiems and other death-related music) and scholars nowadays are taking pains to correct the record on this remarkable composer. Over 20 of his masses have survived and many equal the quality and intensity of Bach's B minor mass or even exceed it (the B minor mass is afterall not very coherent because of the way it was constructed). There are so many great Zelenka masses to discover but a good start is the Missa Dei Filii which for me is the most happy mass ever composed by anyone. It can be heard here:






Check out the gloria which starts at 07:27. By the way, this music was composed 1 year before Handel's Messiah by a composer 6 years older than Handel!

My favourite performance of this mass was broadcast on Czech Television and can be downloaded here (before the mass is a performance of the Te Deum ZWV 146, also by Zelenka, also an absolute cracker of a composition):

https://ulozto.net/!oOYAW4Wv24T8/jd-zelenka-te-deum-missa-avi#_ga=1.203708115.2115328351.1482954147

If you want to hear another cool and very happy mass by Zelenka there is a beautiful new set of videos by the Daegeon Chamber Choir of his Missa Dei Patris:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm2hwn4CN1Rv0URDjHurMgwcXiXuEeZMm

It's pretty much all really uplifting stuff. My favourites are the "Quoniam", "Cum sancto spiritu" and "Et Resurrexit"


----------



## Reichstag aus LICHT

I always find Rossini's _Petite Messe Solennelle_ hugely life-affirming; it's packed full of juicy harmonies and gorgeous melodies. As my old singing teacher used to say, it's neither "petite" nor particularly "solennelle" - and, thank goodness, both his observations were true. Can't get enough of this mass.


----------



## ICHTHUS

Gounod's St. Cecile Mass, especially Gloria and Sanctus


----------



## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> Something in the Classical period - Haydn or Mozart. Hard to believe they took all that original sin, blood sacrifice, and eternal damnation for unbaptized infants stuff seriously when a cheerful D-Major "Kyrie" would suffice.


I see what you mean, but such cheerful settings of the text are also found in pre-Classical-period composers such as Bach (the A major, BWV234, for example. The prominent brass passages and the "horn humor" in the Quoniam from the B minor would have been considered inappropriate for religious use by Bach's predecessors.) and especially Johann David Heinichen. I think that "Kyrie" around that time also had meanings like "Amazing Grace" (as if its aim was to inspire common people to wholeheartedly participate in the worship service through music appreciation) or "God Bless [the King]" (in coronation or name day festivals). After looking through the German text of the Ordinary in Haydn's German Mass MH602, —"Hier liegt vor deiner Majestät im Staub die Christenschar" ("The group of Christians lies here in the dust before Your Majesty") being the "German equivalent" of "Kyrie",— I'm convinced of this. Btw, after listening to it dozens of times over the years, I have come to see things about its "childlikeness" that I had previously overlooked. 
_"We must grow down until we become like a child."_ -Jesus


----------



## RICK RIEKERT

The joyous _Missa Luba_ was first performed in March of 1958 at St. Bavo, a Catholic mission in the town of Kamina, located in what was at the time the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Guido Haazen, along with a choir of forty boys and seventeen men, through a process of collective improvisation, created a new Mass setting. The process linked existing regional folk melodies to the text of the Ordinary of the Mass. Joachim Ngoi, the first tenor soloist to perform Missa Luba, improvised the familiar melodies but with the Greek and Latin text inserted in place of the original language. The choir instinctively responded in harmony to the tenor’s call. The result was an original Mass setting, unparalleled in its ability to be one hundred percent African and yet consistent with the mandates of a pre-Vatican II Catholic church.


----------

