# Bernstein, Mass



## Czech composer (Feb 20, 2016)

What do you think about this sort of music? This is one of my recent discoveries and for me this whole "Mass" is absolutely genius. I especially love parts Gloria Tibi (38:40) and Gloria in Excelsis Deo (40:17).
And second highlight for me is Trope: I believe in one god (1:05:25) which is interesting also in phylosophical point of view.


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## Czech composer (Feb 20, 2016)

If somebody know any similar work, I would be very grateful for recomendation.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I think "Mass" is sui generis. Bernstein had a point he wanted to make, wrote what was, in effect, a Broadway show about it, and never looked back. No one else was sufficiently moved to duplicate it. Opinion about it varies greatly. It was a product of its time.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Czech composer said:


> If somebody know any similar work, I would be very grateful for recomendation.


I would recommend Britten's War Requiem.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem seems in a similar vein. You can make of that what you will.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

MarkW said:


> I think "Mass" is sui generis. Bernstein had a point he wanted to make, wrote what was, in effect, a Broadway show about it, and never looked back. No one else was sufficiently moved to duplicate it. Opinion about it varies greatly. It was a product of its time.


And I love it :tiphat:


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I have an unusual recommendation. Mikis Theodorakis' _Axion Esti_.

Bernstein's work draws on popular music in sections.

Theodorakis' work draws on Greek popular and folk music and is almost like a theater piece.

Link to Theodorakis conducting: 




Along with his concert works Theodorakis also composed popular Greek music like _Zorba the Greek_.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Quite a lot of Bernstein's 'Mass' sounds like the kind of thing David Axelrod might have composed at that time, and it also reminds me of the musicals 'Hair' and 'Godspell' - especially the latter. Incidentally, the lyricist for 'Godspell', Stephen Schwartz, also provided lyrics for 'Mass'. 

From more recent times William Bolcom's epic 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience' (after the poems of William Blake) share similar characteristics and is probably the nearest 'classical' work I can compare it to in terms of musical, and occasionally, spiritual content. Curiously, David Axelrod released two albums based on the same Blake works back in the late 60s.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Things Get Broken: A Jesuit Reflects on Leonard Bernstein's MASS at 50 (10/12/2021)*






After a decade of national sorrows, Leonard Bernstein’s MASS debuted at the Kennedy Center in September 1971. Fifty years later, how might this musical speak to our own troubled times?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

PBS GREAT PERFORMANCES

*Leonard Bernstein Mass*
Season 47 Episode 22 | 1h 53m 10s










Enjoy Ravinia Festival’s production of Leonard Bernstein’s theater piece starring Tony Award-winning baritone *Paulo Szot* and featuring the *Chicago Symphony Orchestra*. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra artistic director *Marin Alsop* conducts.

Aired: 05/15/20
Expires: 05/14/23


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

MarkW said:


> I think "Mass" is sui generis. Bernstein had a point he wanted to make, wrote what was, in effect, a Broadway show about it, and never looked back. No one else was sufficiently moved to duplicate it. Opinion about it varies greatly. It was a product of its time.


I agree. When I first saw it on TV back in the '70s when I was a college student, I thought it was great. At our graduation, we even played the Gloria Tibi and the Half the People are Stoned, with the intonation after all that chaos, "Let us pray." I don't think the faculty was prepared for it.

Now it doesn't get to me like it did back then. But I have a lot of friends who still think it's wonderful.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I am one of those who think it is wonderful, and one of Bernstein's (if not the) best works. I have studied it, and acquired the six recordings as well as several live performances that are on YouTube. 

Although the work is known for the plethora of styles Bernstein incorporated into his composition, there are thematic and structural motifs which Bernstein knitted together throughout the work which create a unity despite the genre and style blending. 

I see the work as prescient, having premiered in 1971 but featuring compositional aspects which today are being embraced by a number of composers.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

For me, _Mass_ just doesn't cut the mustard. While I think there are some good to very good individual moments, it lacks cohesion and is rather chaotic (and not in a good way). Give me _West Side Story_ or _Candide_ any day of the week. Hell, I'd rather listen to _A Quiet Place_ or _Songfest_ (actually a damn fine work) than sit through the _Mass_ again.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kennedy Center 1981


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

This is an article I wrote about Bernstein's Mass in 2020 in which I describe the structure and survey the six recordings.










*Leonard Bernstein’s Mass : Newer Recordings*



> The controversy over Leonard Bernstein’s _Mass_ began with its premiere in 1971. In his review for The New York Times on Sept. 9 that year, Harold C. Schonberg dismissed the piece as “fashionable kitsch,” “cheap and vulgar.” The same morning, Paul Hume in The Washington Post hailed the work as a “rich amalgamation of the theatrical arts” and “the greatest music Bernstein has ever written.”





> I loved it when it was new. Nearly 50 years later, I still do, though I understand why it provokes exasperation. (*Anthony Tommasini*, “Is ‘Mass’ Leonard Bernstein’s Best Work, or His Worst?“, _New York Times_, July 13, 2018)


The stylistic palette of music that makes up _Mass_ reflects the multifaceted nature of Bernstein’s career, with popular genres such as Broadway musicals, blues, rock, and jazz idioms appearing side by side with modern classical techniques, symphonic marches, choral hymns, and orchestral meditations, all blended into an organic, dramatic stage play with motifs that recur. (continue reading)


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

Neo Romanza said:


> For me, _Mass_ just doesn't cut the mustard. While I think there are some good to very good individual moments, it lacks cohesion and is rather chaotic (and not in a good way). Give me _West Side Story_ or _Candide_ any day of the week. Hell, I'd rather listen to _A Quiet Place_ or _Songfest_ (actually a damn fine work) than sit through the _Mass_ again.


Agree.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I love it , special the recording he made himself. Good Listening .
The Yannick Nézet-Séguin recording is a bit over the top.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Some of the critical reappraisal that has occurred since _Mass_'s premier in 1971.

*Longish but good article on Mass*, here's a taste:

"Michelangelo had the Sistine Chapel, James Joyce Ulysses, D. W. Griffith Intolerance,Classical Classics Beethoven the Grosse Fuge – the one crowning project in which inspiration, resources and freedom combined to enable a visionary artist to pursue virtually any goal he wished, free from the demands of populist audiences, the fetters of cultural gatekeepers and the barbs of conservative critics. For Leonard Bernstein it was _Mass_.

"As a distillation of Bernstein's prodigious talent, Mass is nothing less than the artistic bequest of a man who poured into his music his huge love of life in all its glorious but awkward facets. That one man could be so thoroughly conversant with so many disparate musical styles and could blend them all together with such consummate ease is the ultimate testament to Bernstein's eclectic genius. And despite all its secular elements, the lasting impression of Mass is profoundly religious, exalting the joy, probing the challenges and ultimately hallowing the timeless comfort and piece of pure and sincere faith."

Here's a 274-page *dissertation* from 1984 on _Mass_.

In-depth review of the 2018 recording by Nézet-Séguin

*Deep Listen: Bernstein MASS*
Matthew Lorenzon
Posted 28 Mar 2018

"Today the stylistic eclecticism of MASS may not seem so shocking. It is possible to see how each style, including Broadway musical theatre, twelve-tone composition, rock, and blues is used to dramatic effect and how the diverse movements sit together as a whole. To quote Jamie Bernstein again, MASS is a “self-portrait” of her father in all his musical, political, and spiritual dimensions."

And finally, the Anthony Tommasini article I quoted from for my overview.

*Is ‘Mass’ Leonard Bernstein’s Best Work, or His Worst?*
By Anthony Tommasini
July 13, 2018

"At the time, Bernstein was pilloried for daring to draw from myriad serious and popular styles in fashioning this two-hour score — a “wild mélange of everything,” as Schonberg put it. Today, when it’s the norm for composers to blend traditions, his approach seems ahead of its time."


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