Sacred Music - From The Middle Ages To The 20th Century [CD 25-28]

CD 25

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Missa Solemnis op.123 en Ré majeur / D major / D-dur
01 - I. Kyrie [11:55]
02 - II. Gloria [16:59]
03 - III. Credo [17:41]
04 - IV. Sanctus [05:16]
05 - V. Benedictus [09:21]
06 - VI. Agnus Dei [16:09]
Rosa Mannion, soprano - Birgit Remmert, alto
James Taylor, ténor - Cornelius Hauptmann, basse
Choeurs de la Chapelle Royale & du Collegium Vocale
Orchestre des Champs Élysées - dir. Philippe Herreweghe

CD 26

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)
01 - Psalm 100: 'Jauchzet Dem Herrn Alle Welt' [03:53]
02 - Psalm 2 Op.78 No.1: 'Warum Toben Die Heiden' [06:43]
03 - Psalm 43 Op.78 No.2: 'Richte Mich, Gott' [03:47]
04 - Psalm 22 Op.78 No.3: 'Mein Gott, Warum Hast Du Mich Verlassen?' [06:50]
05 - Choralmotette Op.23 No.3: 'Mitten Wir Im Leben Sind' [06:41]
06 - Motette Op.69 No.1: 'Herr, Nun Lassest Du Deinen Diener In Frieden Fahren' [04:20]
07 - Motette Op.69 No.2: 'Jauchzet Dem Herrn Alle Welt' [05:08]
08 - Motette Op.69 No.3: 'Mein Herz Erhebet Gott, Den Herrn' [09:03]
09 - Missa Breve: Kyrie Eleison - Ehre Sei Gott In Der Hohe - Heilig, Heilig, Heilig [07:07]
10 - Zum Abendsegen: 'Herr, Sei Gnadig Unserm Flehn' [02:21]
RIAS Kammerchor, dir. Marcus Creed
11 - Ave Maria [03:39]
12 - Christus Factus Est [06:07]
13 - Os Justi [04:41]
14 - Locus Iste [03:03]
15 - Vexilla Regis [04:51]
La Chapelle Royale - Collegium Vocale Gent
Ensemble Musique Oblique - dir. Philippe Herreweghe

CD 27

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)
MASS
A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers (I)
Quatre Motets Pour Un Temps De Penitence:
01 - Timor Et Tremor [03:20]
02 - Vinea Mea Electa [03:39]
03 - Tenebrae Factae Sunt [04:39]
04 - Tristis Est Anima Mea [03:33]
Quatre Motets Pour Le Temps De Noel:
05 - O Magnum Mysterium [03:05]
06 - Quem Vidistis Pastores Dicites [02:42]
07 - Videntes Stellam [03:17]
08 - Hodie Christus Natus Est [02:25]
Messe En Sol Majeur
09 - I.Kyrie [03:13]
10 - II. Gloria [04:07]
11 - III. Sanctus [02:34]
12 - IV. Benedictus [03:39]
13 - V. Agnus Dei [04:54]
RIAS Kammerchor, dir. Marcus Creed
Mass.Devotions Before Mass
14 - Antiphon: 'Kyrie Eleison' [02:28]
15 - Hymn And Psalm: A Simple Song [03:46]
16 - Mass. I. Devotions Before Mass: 3. Responsory: 'Alleluia' [01:07]
17 - Mass. II. First Introit (Rondo): 1. Prefatory Prayers [05:06]
18 - Mass. II. First Introit (Rondo): 2. Thrice - Triple Canon: Dominus Vobiscum [00:42]
19 - Mass. III. Second Introit: 1. In Nomine Patris [02:03]
20 - Mass. III. Second Introit- 2. Prayer For The Congregation (Chorale- 'Almighty Fathe... [00:00]
21 - Mass. III. Second Introit: 3. Epiphany [00:56]
22 - Mass. IV. Confession: 1. Confiteor [02:10]
23 - Mass. IV. Confession: 2. Trope: 'I Don't Know' [01:30]
24 - Mass. IV. Confession: 3. Trope: 'Easy' [04:44]

CD 28

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)
MASS
A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers (II)
01 - Mass: V. Meditation No.1 [06:11]
02 - Mass. VI. Gloria: 1. Gloria Tibi [01:38]
03 - Mass. VI. Gloria: 2. Gloria In Excelsis [01:16]
04 - Mass. VI. Gloria: 3. Trope: 'Half Of The People' [00:59]
05 - Mass. VI. Gloria: 4. Trope: 'Thank You' [02:42]
06 - Mass. VII. Meditation No.2 [03:37]
07 - Mass. VIII. Epistle 'The Word Of Lord' [05:53]
08 - Mass. IX. Gospel-Sermon 'God Said' [04:27]
09 - Mass: X. Credo: 1. Credo In Unum Deum [01:10]
10 - Mass: X. Credo: 2. Trope: 'Non Credo' [02:17]
11 - Mass: X. Credo: 3. Trope: 'Hurry' [01:22]
12 - Mass: X. Credo: 4. World Without End [01:34]
13 - Mass: X. Credo: 5. Trope: 'I Believe In God' [01:58]
14 - Mass. XI. Meditation No.3 (De Profundis, Part 1) [02:43]
15 - Mass. XII. Offertory (De Profundis, Part 2) [02:02]
16 - Mass. Xiii. The Lord's Prayer: 1. 'Our Father...' [02:07]
17 - Mass. Xiii. The Lord's Prayer: 2. Trope: 'I Go On' [02:34]
18 - Mass. XIV. Sanctus 'Holy! Holy! Holy!...' [05:19]
19 - Mass. XV. Agnus Dei [05:37]
20 - Mass. XVI. Fraction 'Things Get Broken' [14:19]
21 - Mass. XVIi. Pax: Communion 'Secret Songs' [09:43]
Jerry Hadley, ténor
Rundfunkchor Berlin
Pacific Mozart Ensemble
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Dir. Kent Nagano

TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

To Romain Rolland ‘there is the Missa Solemnis as there is Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel’, in other words, a work of such
grandeur that it surpasses man and his time, to transmit a message of eternity. The romantic artist is a superior being who
must guide, if not edify, his fellow-creature. And indeed, in the Missa, his ultimate religious masterpiece, Beethoven pours
out all the sincerity and complexity of his Christian faith (tinged with freemasonry and a certain deism), with the purpose of
sharing it with everyone: his principal aim was to arouse religious feeling in the singers as well as in the listeners and to cause
this feeling to endure. He said that he wished to come closer to the Divinity than other mortals and from there to spread the
rays of the Divinity among all mankind. It is, perhaps, in this light that we should understand his epigraph to the Kyrie: ‘From


Beethoven composed the Missa Solemnis in the hope of having it sung at the investiture of Archduke Rudolph (1788-1831) as
Archbishop of Olmutz in Moravia on 9 March 1820. Rudolph, the son of Emperor Leopold II, had been his most diligent piano
and composition pupil and his most faithful patron since 1809. There was an avowed mutual admiration and affection between
the two men. Moreover, it seems that Beethoven cherished the hope of one day becoming the Archduke’s Kapellmeister, a hope
that may well have been one of the reasons behind the composition of the Missa. However, since Beethoven always required
a long time for his works to mature, the mass was not finished in time and was to engage his energies for almost five years.
The Kyrie was sketched in April-May 1819, the Gloria between June and December, the Credo as far as the fugue ‘Et vitam
venturi’ and a few fragments of the Sanctus from January to March 1820. The Credo was completed between the end of April
and July. The Benedictus was written between November and February 1821, the ‘Agnus Dei’ and the ‘Dona nobis pacem’
were sketched between March and July and finished in August 1822. The final score underwent a number of revisions until
November. Beethoven spent the next seven months preparing copies destined for the great courts and prominent personalities
of Europe, with a view to eliciting a number of subsidies, but this attempt at obtaining subscriptions brought him virtually
nothing. A contemporary of the last three piano sonatas, the Missa Solemnis was published by Schott of Mainz in April 1827,
a few days after the death of the composer. The first performance took place in St Petersburg on 7 April 1824 in a concert of
the Philharmonic Society given for the benefit of the widows of its former members. The Viennese had to wait until 7 May to
hear the Kyrie, the Credo and the Agnus Dei (yoked together under the title of ‘Three great hymns with solos and chorus’) sung
at the Kartnertortheater under the direction of Michael Umlauf, in the company of the Overture op.124 (The Consecration of
the House in the style of Handel) and the Ninth Symphony, composed between 1822 and 1824. Although the theatre was full,
the soul of the audience was missing: the Imperial family and the Archduke Rudolph. Even the takings, after the deduction of
expenses, were meagre: Vienna was under the spell of Rossini and the Italian opera.

Italian opera: there lay the rub. Beethoven had always refused to bend to the craze. In December 1819 he expressed his
contempt for the prevailing style in sacred music which had ‘degenerated into opera music’. In this respect he agreed with
E. T. A. Hoffmann who protested at the grandiloquence of contemporary masses, considering that only the art of the old
masters (Palestrina, Bach, Handel) was capable of expressing the most sincere and profound religious spirit. Beethoven felt
the same need to return to the sources, and had the doors of the Imperial Library opened to him so that he might consult the
models of the past. But, in truth, what model could he take from Viennese liturgical music? Mozart’s Mass in C minor K427
is fragmentary. Beethoven could not rely on his own earlier works. His oratorio, Christus am Olberge (Christ on the Mount
of Olives, 1803), written in a few weeks under the influence of Haydn, was hardly satisfactory. Similarly, his Mass in C major
(1807), commissioned by Prince Esterhazy, had been a dismal failure since its style of writing ran counter to the conventions
of the day by stressing the voices to the detriment of the orchestra: ‘pure church music should be performed only by voices’,
he is reported as having said. True to his principles and in spite of everything, Beethoven pursued his quest for a modern
and genuine religious style.

The Missa Solemnis takes up this quest at the point where the Mass op.86 had left off: in addition to a choral style comparable
to Palestrina’s or Handel’s (as in the ‘Et resurrexit’ and the ‘Osanna’), it incorporates a symphonic manner of writing that
becomes a veritable vehicle for the text of the Ordinary rather than a mere harmonic support. In Beethoven, the orchestra
has its own part to play, often stating the theme while the voices (soloists or not) independently declaim the text, as in the
‘Domine Deus’ of the Gloria (where the acclamation of the chorus is superimposed on the ascending motif in the orchestra
which announced the beginning of the movement), or in the Benedictus (where the superb violin solo joins the voices as


Mixolydian modes, reminiscences of Gregorian chant in the ‘Et incarnatus est’ (underlined by the undulations of the flute
which might be seen as evocations of the Holy Ghost), as well as traditional musical figures to depict certain images of the
liturgical text (for example, the falling motif on ‘descending’ and the rising one on ‘ascendit’). The fleeting quotations from
Handel’s Messiah in the Gloria and the Agnus Dei, and the use of theatrical artifices like the fanfares in the Agnus Dei, might
give the impression that the Missa is an inconsistent work. It is nothing of the kind. All of these elements, both modern and
inherited from the past, are perfectly integrated and are cemented by a generative cell comprised of G-F sharp-B-A-G-F sharp
that enters at the beginning of the Kyrie to be marvellously transformed in the prelude before the Benedictus. As regards its
potential liturgical use, the Missa, like the Mass in B minor, is of such immense dimensions (twice the average length of a
Haydn mass), that it is more suited to the concert hall than to the church.

Beethoven studied the text of the Ordinary with great seriousness and, as Romain Rolland writes, scrupulously followed ‘the
slightest nuances of all the words’. Sometimes he skims through certain passages (for instance, from ‘in spiritu’ to ‘Confiteor
in unum baptisma’ in the Credo) which do not seem to arouse ‘a keen interest’ in him, only to dwell more intensely on others
that correspond more to his personal preoccupations. Thus the imploring cries of ‘Miserere’ in the Gloria and the Agnus Dei,
which are in vivid contrast with the appeased atmosphere of the Benedictus, are evidence of an increasingly oppressive doubt.
The Missa does not end in a song of triumph, but in a supplication giving way to an interrogation: ‘Did Beethoven really believe
that his prayer would be heard?’ wondered Ernest Newman. In fact, the further Beethoven progressed with the work the more
aware he became that ‘inner and outer peace’ could not be ‘victoriously compelled’ as the fanfare in the Agnus Dei might
suggest, but had to be ‘implored’. As an utterance of faith could the Missa Solemnis be called a failure? Could five years of
labour have led Beethoven to doubt eternal life, a doubt that had preoccupied him since 1803? Could he find peace in a world
torn by incessant strife and war? In order to recover this inner peace he needed to come to grips with another hope-filled text,
Schiller’s Ode to Joy. – J.-P. M.

We are familiar with his symphonies, with many of his piano pieces, even, perhaps, with his string quartets, and, of course
with A Midsummer-Night’s Dream and the Violin Concerto. But, curiously enough, of Mendelssohn’s output of sacred
music only the two large-scale oratorios Paulus and Elias have managed to conquer a permanent place in the repertoire.
On the other hand, the smaller religious compositions, which were written in almost every phase of his artistic career, now
seem little more than accessories, secondary tributaries of an oeuvre whose major works were so clearly intended for the
concert hall or the intimacy of the drawing-room that there was little room left for any thorough analytical consideration of
the fundamental conflict between artistic demands and practical usefulness in which liturgical music found itself involved
in the Romantic period.

Does this mean that we are, in fact, dealing with ‘marginalia’ in the present selection of Mendelssohn’s religious music? By no
means. In the first place, Mendelssohn’s reputation as a master of the art was not taken lightly. So it was that his appointment
in 1842 as Prussia’s leading church musician by Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who since his accession in the summer of the previous
year had zealously set about making Berlin a cultural centre of the first rank, can hardly be regarded as fortuitous. Officially
appointed as General Music Director of the Court and Cathedral Church on 22 November 1842, the celebrated Kapellmeister
of the Leipzig Gewandhaus was offered a new foundation of first-rate singers and instrumentalists. And although matters in
Berlin turned out not at all to Mendelssohn’s liking – serious differences between him, the King and the clergy finally led to
his withdrawal from both his post as church musician and from the city at the beginning of 1844 – he never turned his back


Moreover, there is very little idiomatic difference between Mendelssohn’s secular and sacred musical language. The
omnipresent sense of form, which always strikes one even more strongly than his melodic inventiveness, characterises the
motets and psalms as much as it does the symphonies. The music is never relegated to the position of a servant to the word,
degraded to that of a mere vehicle for a religious message. On the contrary, it infuses the texts with new life by means of the
eloquence of the seriously elaborated harmonic language, and especially through the independence and conciseness of its
architectural design – in which it shows its very profound obligation to the mighty tradition reaching from Josquin to Bach.
‘He is a little too fond of the dead’, Berlioz once ironically remarked. But whenever Mendelssohn, the convinced Protestant
with a deep knowledge of the Bible, referred to his great predecessors, he never did so for reasons of eclectic facility, but always
with the perspicuity of the highly cultured chronicler who as a very young prodigy in the circles of Carl Friedrich Zelter’s Berlin
Singakademie had thoroughly mastered the rules of polyphonic vocal music, and later – fusing them with the emotional
vocabulary of the Romantics – endowed them with a new and more subjective significance.

He had no fear of contact with the past, candidly observing that ‘no one can prohibit me from delighting in and continuing
to develop what the great masters have bequeathed me, because not everyone should be expected to start from the beginning
again; but it should be a continuation to the best of one’s abilities, not a dead repetition of what already exists.’ The taking-up
of threads and the creative continuation of tradition are the key concepts of an artistic credo in which refined counterpoint
in the manner of Bach occupies as important a position as plain rhythmic chordal writing. In this way Mendelssohn creates
striking small-scale structural processes out of the combination of the most varied compositional techniques, uniting unison
passages, syllabically declaimed chorale episodes, and complex polyphonic writing, often enriched with solo parts, in a
colourful bouquet of vocal styles which we do not find in so opulent a form in any of his contemporaries. At the same time,
however, this wealth of expressive resources lands his sacred music on the horns of a dilemma: too liturgical for concert
music, and too concertante for the church, it resists both classification and functional assignment. What is more, it is a
dilemma that has not been conducive to its widespread popularity.

In the op.23 triptych Mendelssohn embarked for the first time on the venerable old model of the chorale motet with cantus
firmus, with which he had become acquainted in Zelter’s schoolroom. In comparison with the earlier works, these pieces
show a noticeably more refined sense of vocal sonorities and a lighter, more fluent and less academically inflexible handling
of polyphonic techniques. The antiphonal structure of the setting of Mitten wir im Leben sind (a piece that strikingly evokes
the atmosphere of some woodcut), written in Rome in the autumn of 1830 during his Grand Tour, is a fascinating example of
textually dictated dramatic form. The treatment of the anguished passages referring to death and temporality begins with an
antiphonal alternation between the sopranos and basses in the choir and it is not until the beseeching prayer for divine help
that all the voices are united in skilful imitation.

Mendelssohn was not interested in illustrating the contents of the text by means of any kind of musical symbolism. This is
quite evident in the three double-chorus psalm motets of op.78 (1843/44), whose strict, sculptural settings, in spite of their
epic dimensions, create an economy and a discipline that resist any form of melodramatic exuberance. It was probably this
restraint that caused Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny to describe the setting of Psalm 2, Warum toben die Heiden, written for the
Christmas service of 1843; as ‘very Gregorian, very Sistine Chapel-like’.

Compared with the ascetic power of op.78, the four-part setting of Psalm 100, Jauchzet dem Herrn, written in the spring of
1844 for the Neuer Tempelverein of Hamburg, sounds downright conventional. In its melodic fluency, its effective harmonies,
and its folk-like simplicity, it is akin to the concise and unpretentious settings of the three pieces of the so-called Missa
brevis, an assembly of parts of the Deutsche Liturgie (Kyrie – Ehre sei Gott – Heilig


published Abendsegen.

With the op.69 motets, mature works par excellence, written in 1847, the year of his death, Mendelssohn’s output of religious
vocal music came to an end. Originally written for the Anglican service, they were later published with the German words of
the three canticles Herr, nun la.est Du Deinen Diener (‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant’ – the Nunc dimittis), Jauchzet
dem Herrn (‘Rejoice in the Lord’ – the Jubilate Deo), and Mein Herz erhebet Gott, den Herrn (‘My soul doth magnify the
Lord’ – the Magnificat). The Magnificat, in particular, is a model of humble piety in which the grandiose artistic means of
the polyphonic setting never become a means in itself, but constantly serve the faultless articulation of the vocal texture in
which the text is presented in perfectly balanced sections. Nowhere else did Mendelssohn more consummately transform the
golden rule of ars velare artem (the art of concealing art) into music. – R. H.

‘In the history of European art, Bruckner is one of those very rare geniuses endowed with the power of giving expression to
the supernatural and rendering the divine present in our human world.’ When he wrote these lines, Wilhelm Furtwangler
was probably thinking much more of the spirituality that emanates from the symphonies than that of the sacred works. In
fact, posterity has remembered those ‘masses without words’, the nine symphonies, but a more thorough examination of
his output reveals a prolific composer of religious music: sixty pieces, ten of which are with orchestra. The major part of this
production dates from before Bruckner’s final move to Vienna (1868).

From then on his creative activity would be almost exclusively devoted to the symphonies. However, there was no rupture in
Bruckner’s inspiration, since the ninth and last Symphony bears the dedication ‘Omnia ad Majorem Dei Gloriam’.

It was only natural that Bruckner, as organist of the Augustinian monastery of St Florian (1845-65) and then of Linz Cathedral
(1856-68), should have composed choral pieces of a liturgical nature commensurate with his liturgical function. It is also
significant that his first and his last finished works call for a chorus, and that on his arrival in Linz he joined the ‘Frohsinn’
Choir as second tenor and shortly afterwards became its choirmaster. Moreover, it was for the sixteenth anniversary of this
choral society that he wrote his Ave Maria, first performed on 12 May 1861. Bruckner had already set this salutation to the
Virgin in 1856 for four-part chorus and organ. This time, though, he produced a setting for seven-part chorus in F major, in
which the first part pits the female voices against the men and then combines them on the name of Jesus in a radiant A major
chord. The serene second part expresses the felicity of the Virgin, exhorted to intercede for us, especially in the hour of our
death. This is underscored by the music.

The next four motets were writtenconsiderably later and date from the composer’s Viennese period, when he was professor
of organ, theory and counterpoint at the Conservatory. They are among the most beautiful. The words are taken from three
Graduals. Locus iste, the first work of church music written in Vienna, still had a tenuous link with Linz, because it was there
that it was first performed in the Cathedral square on 29 October 1869, one month after the first performance of the Mass
in E minor. It is for four-part chorus, and is divided into three balanced sections with important parts for the basses in the
outer sections, representing the solidity of the house of God, while the middle section, without basses, might symbolise the
immaterial, unchangeable character of the edifice. The Gradual, Os justi, written after a ten-year break in the composition
of sacred music, is for eight-part chorus in the Lydian mode and was first sung at St Florian on 28 August 1879. The music
admirably underlines the four sections of the text. Note the 4-part fugal writing, evocative of the didactic character (loquetur)
of the Psalm text, and the peaceful but rhythmically regular conclusion that so aptly expresses the unalterable mission of
the Chosen One. The third Gradual, Christus factus est, had already been set to music twice before this final version, sung


whose exaltation (exaltavit illum) and name (super omne nomen) are celebrated in both the text and the music in three
powerful fortes? Finally, the hymn Vexilla Regis, first performed at St Florian on Good Friday, 31 March 1892, is Bruckner’s
last liturgical composition before Psalm 50 for chorus and orchestra. It consists of three musically identical verses, with great
harmonic freedom in spite of its being written in the Phrygian mode. – J.-Y. B.

In a half-jocular tone Francis Poulenc sometimes wondered why he had not been born in the fifteenth century, since
polyphonic music was so natural to him . . . But then, incorrigible Parisian that he was, he added that the ‘other fifteenth’ –
the fifteenth arrondissement – also had its charms. Beyond the anecdotes, the tiresomely repeated formulas surrounding
the ‘monk and the hooligan’, one thing is certain: Poulenc was a genuine polyphonist as well as a man of sincere faith, even
if he was not to recover that faith until 1936 and to live it out in a more or less strained fashion for the rest of his life. In
spite of the austere teachings of Charles Koechlin which he followed in private between 1921 and 1924, when as an already
celebrated young composer he came to revise his self-acquired knowledge under the author of a famous treatise on harmony
and counterpoint, Poulenc would never be a contrapuntist. We find hardly any music in imitation, fugues or other technical
devices dear to the ‘old masters’. On the other hand, he was gifted with an innate faculty: he knew how to layer registers,
to create an astounding variety of sonic densities, a ‘grain of sound’, a ‘stratification’ of the texture that often brings organ
registration to mind.

In 1922 Poulenc produced a Chanson a boire (Drinking Song) (FP 31), very simply, but already quite impeccably constructed,
after which it was not until 1936 that he returned to choral composition. In the spring of that year he wrote the Sept Chansons
(FP 81) for a cappella choir and then, in a kind of mystic revelation, the Litanies a la Vierge noire (FP 82) for female choir
and organ. These two publications are of capital importance. In the Sept Chansons he brings into play everything he had
acquired from Monteverdi’s madrigals, which he had discovered some months previously at the Princess de Polignac’s where
Nadia Boulanger’s group of madrigalists sang them, whereas in the Litanies he expresses himself with the genuine simplicity
of a ‘country prayer’, a formula he liked using with regard to his religious music, which he qualified as being ‘essentially
direct and, if I may say so, familiar’.

Written in August 1937 in the Morvan (Burgundy), the Mass in G major (FP 89) is Poulenc’s first a cappella religious
composition. As madrigalian, airy and virtuosic as was the writing in the Sept Chansons, in the Mass it is vertical, dense, and
calm. It is dedicated to the memory of his father, from whom he claimed to have inherited his religious nature: ‘Since I am
of Aveyronnais [south-west France], that is to say, of mountainous and virtually Mediterranean stock, I have always and quite
naturally given my preferences to the Romanesque style. I have, therefore, attempted to write this act of faith, a mass, in this
rugged and direct style.’ And yet, rather than elaborately wrought edifices, it was of the simple Burgundian roofs that he was
thinking when he wrote it. This is borne out by, among other features, the purity of the soprano solo in the Agnus Dei, whose
last supplications anticipate the leitmotif of the Dialogues des Carmelites (FP 159) of 1953-56. The Mass in G major was first
performed on 3 April 1938 in the Dominican Chapel on the Faubourg Saint Honore in Paris by the Chanteurs de Lyon, who
had commissioned and first sung the Sept Chansons, of which they were also the dedicatees.

The Quatre Motets pour un temps de penitence were written between July 1938 and January 1939. Nos.2, 3 and 4 are
settings of three responds for Matins on Maundy Thursday (no.4), Good Friday (no.2), and Holy Saturday (no.3). No.1,
Timor et tremor, uses excerpts from Psalms 54 (55) and 30 (31) which Poulenc undoubtedly found in Orlande de Lassus’s
celebrated motet of the same name, one of the rare musical settings of this penitential ‘patchwork’. We notice the return to


figures on ‘exclamavit’, inflected motif on ‘et inclinatio capite’, etc.). Like the Agnus Dei of the Mass, the last motet, Tristis
est anima mea, introduces a soprano solo. Here, too we have dramatic figures, with alternating calm sections and rhythmic
figures. The last page of this cycle, at ‘et ego vadam’, is probably one of the most beautiful in all Poulenc: over a pedal point on
G the voices, divided into up to nine parts, elaborate a litanic movement of infinite melancholy.

In contrast to those for Passiontide, we might have expected a more joyful tone and gait in the Quatre Motets pour le temps
de Noel (FP 152). But Poulenc chose to stress the anguish-laden aspect of the coming of the Saviour, the terror of the
shepherds before this mystery. This is, above all, what is expressed in the ‘lamenting’ tessitura of the beginning of O magnum
mysterium, and the hummed melodies, like the murmuring of distressed multitude, of the beginning of Quem vidistis.
Videntes stellam is less woebegone in its melancholy, but not until the last motet do we hear the outpouring of unambiguous
joy. Here the music is a kind of martial hymn with dotted figures and decorative semiquavers. The cycle was written between
November 1951 and May 1952. The circumstances of its composition are unknown. Carl Schmidt suggests that the Nederlands
Kammerkoor under Felix de Nobel gave the first performance in Madrid in 1952. – R. M.

Mass is more than thirty years old, a piece of history, the testimony to an epoch in which opposing human models of power
and lifestyle came into violent collision, an era of promise, an era full of illusions. To say that Mass was a commission tells
us little of its content, for the Kennedy family had left America’s best-known composer free to write whatever he wanted
for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in September 1971. The fact that he wrote a mass
was wholly Bernstein’s own decision. In so doing, he certainly intended to show honour and reverence for the first Roman
Catholic president of the USA; he had already spontaneously dedicated his Third Symphony to him in 1963 on hearing of
the assassination in Dallas. But his deep respect for Kennedy does not wholly explain the choice of musical subject. The
Catholic Church in the early Seventies found itself embroiled in violent internal arguments. Crucial attempts to renew the
old institution were emerging from Latin America; ‘liberation theology’ challenged the Church establishment, and well-worn
ritual and dogmatic habits along with it. The way political visions, spiritual needs and intellectual and religious traditions could
combine for the benefit of mankind was something that interested Bernstein, an artist who thought in terms of connections.
Art – or so the intellectual approach of Mass seems to indicate – can bring together heterogeneous forces and expectations
and create a dialogue between them, yet without attempting to fuse them in an enforced ‘unity’. The idea that art can take over
functions once performed by religion is hardly a new one. It stimulated writers, thinkers and composers in the nineteenth
century; Gustav Mahler’s works can scarcely be understood without it. Yet is the mass really a suitable genre for demonstrating
the unifying power of the arts?

In Mass, a full evening’s programme that lasts around two hours in performance, the fifty-two-year-old Leonard Bernstein
drew together at least two strands in his oeuvre. The first of these had previously been given its most concentrated expression
in the Third Symphony (Kaddish) and the Chichester Psalms. In these works Bernstein tackled religious questions and
traditions; he himself came from a devout Jewish family. The other strand is represented above all by West Side Story – an
attempt to investigate present-day human and social conflicts in musical and theatrical terms on the basis of a classic play.
Mass probes the need for religion and spirituality, testing what is offered by widely practised, institutionalised faiths, and
subjecting the expectations that grow up in human communities to a thorough critique. With this work, Bernstein stepped
beyond the boundaries of his own religious confession, turning his attention to Christian traditions and the manifestations of
them that were current in 1970. He took religious convictions and rituals out of the remoteness of the sacred sphere, since


and breaking with the solemn tone traditionally associated with sacred music.

Theatricalisation of the Mass is nothing new; according to Bernstein, it is in the very nature of religious ritual. Any ceremonial
act of worship also makes its impact as a spectacle, in which non-verbal elements have as much significance as words; one
aspect of its appeal is the fashion in which it claims and occupies the community’s time. Moreover, the Mass, in the broadest
sense of a ritual action, had long conquered the musical stage. Religious ceremonies are frequently to be found in nineteenth-
century opera; Hector Berlioz, a composer with a pronounced theatrical sense, created in his Requiem an apocalyptic
spectacle for eyes and ears, staged in both space and sound. He deployed four ensembles at different points in space.

Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, in line with the technical possibilities of the late twentieth century, uses a pre-recorded
quadraphonic tape, which conveys an effect of unreality and remoteness even more clearly than Berlioz’s offstage ensembles.
Hence the American composer could call on a well-established tradition when he conceived his Mass and subsequently
explained his ideas in debate. Nevertheless, the first performance polarised opinion among its hearers, both professionals
and laymen. Some, the majority, were deeply moved. Peter Gradenwitz reported that when the last ‘Amen’ had died away on
8 September 1971, the listeners in the hall remained sitting in their places, as if spellbound, for fully three minutes – which
seemed like an eternity. They then rose and applauded enthusiastically for almost half an hour. Others felt the work was
provocation, blasphemy, sacrilege, a disparagement of faith. Serious objections were also raised to the music, quite apart from
the text and dramaturgy. Even today, assessments of Mass are surrounded by controversy. All the same, much that infuriated
music-lovers thirty years ago has lost its shock value in the meantime. – H. T.