a longish Missa Brevis

Posted on May 7, 2004 by vhk10

The Chantry Singers have started rehearsing again. I have sung all three pieces in the next concert before, but in each case there’s a catch.

Firstly, the Little Organ Mass by Haydn. We are doing this with the extensions to the Gloria by Michael Haydn, who teased his brother’s music out by inserting sections of his own so that it no longer superimposes four lots of words simultaneously. I’ve done this adaptation once before (in Holy Name Church, Manchester) but I’ve done Haydn’s unadapted version many more times and it’s disconcerting to have the extra bits, particularly where a phrase begins as originally composed and then changes tack.

The Deutsches Magnificat by Schütz is still fresh in my mind as I performed it 18 months ago in the Brandon Hill Singers’ final concert. (I was reminded of this again the following day, when we had a work awayday at St. George’s Brandon Hill. As always when I go in there, I wondered why, when the church was made into a concert hall, they didn’t retain the musical instrument that was already there – the organ). This time though we are doing the Magnificat from a different edition with different barring, and I am singing in the first choir rather than the second.

I have sung Kodály’s Missa Brevis before, but it was a long time ago. It was also at a service in Ely Cathedral, and so I don’t think I sang the Kyrie or Creed, and certainly not the ‘Ite Missa Est’. It’s pretty substantial for a Missa Brevis (though shorter than Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle), and lasts a good half-hour on the recording I have.

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4 Responses to a longish Missa Brevis

  1. Lyndall Rossbach says:
    January 16, 2005 at 8:15 pm

    Looking for short Latin masses. Already familiar with
    Mozart, Haydn, Britten, Balzano, Kodaly,Palestrina.Do you know of others? Thanks so much, Lyndall Rossbach

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  2. vhk says:
    January 18, 2005 at 1:24 pm

    Doing a trawl for Masses I’ve sung called ‘Missa Brevis’, as well as the ones you mention (except for Balzano which I haven’t come across) I found:
    William Walton, Lennox Berkeley, Anthony Caesar, plus an unpublished one by a friend of mine. (All in Latin I think – not quite sure about the Walton).
    Mozart wrote lots of course – I’ve sung 3 or 4 of them.

    There are other Mass settings which are short but not called ‘Missa Brevis’. For example:
    Michael Walsh (Mass of the Holy Trinity)
    Judith Clarke (Clifton Mass) This is fresh in my memory as I sang the Agnus Dei at the christening of the composer’s daughter two days ago. It was written for use in Advent and Lent so there’s no Gloria.

    I notice that composers still frequently choose to set the Latin text of the Mass rather than a modern translation or the BCP text, perhaps because it is not going to go more out of date or be altered by liturgical revision. (The Piccolo Canterbury Mass I sang at Southwark was an exception).

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  3. David Underdown says:
    March 2, 2005 at 9:45 pm

    Another Latin Missa Brevis is that by Matyas Seiber, a Hungarian who settled n this country. It doesn’t have a Gloria (or a Credo) so is probably most useful in Lent/Advent.

    It’s quite a simple setting, oftenwith tenros and sopranos doubling, and similarly for altos and basses, or occasionally men against women.

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  4. vhk says:
    March 3, 2005 at 9:35 am

    I don’t know Seiber’s Mass, though a few years ago I sang some of his choral arrangements of Hungarian folksongs.
    Another Missa Brevis by someone of Hungarian origins (though Viennese-born) is the one by Egon Wellesz, written in the 1930’s. I sang this once at a service attended by delegates to an Oxford conference in honour of his centenary. I recall that we all rather liked the Mass. Perhaps with the recent revival of interest in Wellesz’s music it might re-enter the repertoire.

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