The Origins and Ascendancy of the Concert Mass

Stephanie Rocke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000300192
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Musica

The mass is an extraordinary musical form. Whereas other Western art music genres from medieval times have fallen out of favour, the mass has not merely survived but flourished. A variety of historical forces within religious, secular, and musical arenas saw the mass expand well beyond its origins as a cycle of medieval chants, become concertised and ultimately bifurcate. Even as Western societies moved away from their Christian origins to become the religiously plural and politically secular societies of today, and the Church itself moved in favour of congregational singing, composers continued to compose masses. By the early twentieth century two forms of mass existed: the liturgical mass composed for church services, and the concert mass composed for secular venues. Spanning two millennia, The Origins and Ascendancy of the Concert Mass outlines the origins and meanings of the liturgical texts, defines the concert mass, explains how and why the split occurred, and provides examples that demonstrate composers' gradual appropriation of the genre as a vehicle for personal expression on serious issues. By the end of the twentieth century the concert mass had become a repository for an eclectic range of theological and political ideas.

Part I

Origins

Kyrie

A concert mass is inspired by past settings of the liturgical texts of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church… it is constructed as a unified whole, cohesive across multiple movements…

1Exploring the Ordinary of the Roman Rite

Roman Catholic liturgy as living tradition

Liturgical origins

From soon after his crucifixion, followers of Christ came together in ceremonial meals that included prayers and the breaking of bread (Acts 2:42). By the third century ce the ceremony had become a sacrament.¹ The ritualised service centred upon the commemoration of the Pesach or Passover meal that Christ, as a Jew, had shared with his disciples the night before he was crucified.² During this meal Christ took the traditional unleavened bread and broke it up. Sharing bread and wine with the disciples, he advised them: ‘this is My body […] this is My blood’ (Matthew 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24), instructing them to ‘do this in remembrance of Me’ (Luke 22:19). Over the ensuing centuries various localised ritual practices that carried out this instruction evolved concurrently; however, for both pragmatic and political reasons, a movement in favour of standardisation saw the Mass of the Roman Rite settled upon and begin to become widely adopted by the Christian churches of the West in the thirteenth century.³

The Roman Rite consists of four main sections: the Introductory Rites; the Liturgy of the Word; the Liturgy of the Eucharist; and the Concluding Rite. Included within the first three sections are the five texts ordinarily recited or sung during the celebration of the Eucharist, or Mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. These five texts are collectively known as the Ordinary of the Roman Rite, thereby distinguishing them from the liturgical and biblical texts known as the Proper, which change depending on the religious season that the celebration falls within.⁴ When arranged proportionally around a central axis, the texts of the Ordinary take the form of a cross (see Figure 1.1): a symbolic representation that would not have been lost among medieval Christians, whose scribes sometimes included pages of text shaped in cruciform in their illuminated manuscripts.⁵ Because settings of the Ordinary could potentially be sung in any mass without regard for season, numerous versions of chants for each of the five sections were developed across Christendom.

From at least the thirteenth century, the chants of the Ordinary began to be grouped together as cycles in choir books, or graduals, paving the way for the five sections to be conceived of as a single work by composers from the fourteenth century onwards.⁶ As time passed, the texts of the Ordinary, when set to music, became known collectively by the Latin word missae, or a vernacular equivalent, such as Messes in German and masses in English.

Figure 1.1Latin texts of the Ordinary of the Roman Rite laid out in cruciform (diagram prepared by author).

Narrative arc

The liturgy of the Roman Rite is steeped in the writings and traditions of the Jewish faith into which Christ was born, and from which the early Jewish-Christians would break away to found Christianity, joined by Gentile and pagan converts.⁷ The texts are laden with drama and emotion. The pleading for mercy of the Kyrie moves to expressions of delight in the Gloria and proceeds to a heart-rousing affirmation of individual and collective faith in the Credo. The Sanctus is a worshipful prayer of thanks for the possibility of Heaven, which leads to the concluding text, a final plea for mercy and peace in the Agnus Dei. For the believer, the texts of the Ordinary are both joyous and comforting; they acknowledge human frailty but celebrate the wonder of an omnipotent ever-loving God who has promised to forgive all who repent.

Within the context of the Mass service, each text of the Ordinary is separated from the next by the changing texts of the Proper or readings from the Bible, and is accompanied by ritualistic action.⁸ Within the context of the concert mass, however, the texts flow one to the other with virtually no break and, in place of the visual physicality of the ritualistic action, the music contributes a sonic emotional backdrop that has the potential to match, emphasise or, more perversely, to contradict the meaning of the words set. To understand the purpose and shape of the concert mass, then, some knowledge of the origins and meaning of the texts of the Ordinary⁹ is required.

Kyrie

Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison.	Lord, have mercy. Lord have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Christe, eleison. Christe, eleison. Christe, eleison.	Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison.	Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

While almost all of the Roman Rite is in Latin, the text of the Kyrie provides the one exception; it is in Greek, the common language of the Mediterranean region during classical antiquity and until the early third century when it was supplanted by Latin.¹⁰ The Kyrie was adopted into the Roman liturgy from Eastern – or Oriental – liturgical practices in around the fifth century and was originally a litany.¹¹ The officiant or priest would make a number of petitions to God saying, ‘Kyrie, eleison’ (Lord, have mercy) or ‘Christe, eleison’ (Christ, have mercy) at the end of each. The list of petitions varied from case to case, but would generally include ‘prayers for the whole Church, for the clergy, for the people, and the ruler, for those on a journey and for the sick, for the benefactors of the Church and for the poor, and for peace’.¹² By the sixth century, however, the petitions generally had been dropped for pragmatic reasons: the service was becoming too long. Accordingly, the text settled upon for the Roman Rite is short and simple, comprising three statements of Kyrie eleison followed by three statements of Christe eleison, concluding with a further three statements of Kyrie eleison.¹³ Thus, the petitionary flavour of the early longer versions remains encapsulated in the multiple repetitions of the word eleison. Similarly, the symbolism of the three-by-three invocations was not lost in the abbreviated version. The number three had become increasingly significant to the Christian Church, particularly with the development of the triune concept of the three persons in one God, codified early in the third century by Tertullian of Carthage (c.160–c.230).¹⁴ Thus, although the early Christians used Kyrie (Lord) interchangeably with Christe, and all petitions were addressed to Christ, as time passed, the first Kyrie of the first set of petitions came to be understood as God, and the Kyrie of the third set, the Holy Spirit.¹⁵

Gloria

Glória in excélsis Deo	Glory to God in the highest,
all goodnibus bonae voluntátis.	and on earth peace to all people of good will.
Laudámus te,	We praise you,
benedícimus te,	we bless you,
adorámus te,	we adore you,
glorificámus te,	we glorify you,
grátias ág...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• Part I Origins: Kyrie
• Part II Becoming: Gloria
• Part III Division: Credo
• Part IV Divided: Sanctus-Benedictus
• Part V Ascendance: Agnus Dei
• Appendix Non-liturgical (concert) masses 1883–1963
• Index
• General Index