Mass

What it means

The Mass is the central service of the Catholic Church and at the same time the designation for its musical setting. As a rule, the five parts of the Ordinary are set, whose texts stay the same: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus with Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. The changing parts of the Proper are set less often. A special form is the Requiem, the Mass for the dead, in which the Gloria is omitted and its own texts are added.

Musical use

The Mass setting is one of the most enduring genres of European music history and reaches from monophonic liturgy through the polyphony of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to large-scale works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Because the texts are fixed, compositions can be compared directly; the genre is thus a gauge of the change of styles. Large Masses burst the liturgical frame and are performed in concert, while plainer settings remain intended for use in worship. Within the parts there are fixed conventions — a festive Gloria, a calm Benedictus, a pleading Agnus Dei — from which composers can deliberately depart.

Performance practice

First get an overview of the layout of the work and the characters of the movements, so that the shaping does not become uniform. Fix the Latin pronunciation in a binding way and work on a shared distribution of syllables. Plan your strength over the whole duration of the performance, especially in works with several fugues. Watch the balance with trumpets and timpani in the festive movements. For liturgical use, the duration is to be coordinated with those leading the service.

Bear in mind that Mass settings vary greatly in scope and not every one is suited to worship: large works burst the liturgical frame and belong in concert, plain settings fit in. Check this when planning a programme. Clarify whether the Credo is sung or spoken in the liturgy, since it is the longest movement in many settings. Fix pronunciation and syllable distribution in a binding way. Plan your strength over the whole duration and rehearse fugues and festive closing movements separately.