The Greatest Mozart Mass on Sunday Night

Mozart's Mass in C Minor is undoubtedly the composer's best setting of the Mass. We know today that Mozart began his work on this Mass towards the end of the year 1782; the circumstances surrounding this composition however are somewhat unclear. Without a specific commission there certainly was no economic motive. However, having recently married Constanze Weber, it is plausible that Mozart wanted to compose a work in thanksgiving for his marriage. Mozart's father Leopold never quite approved of this marriage, leading Mozart to travel to Salzburg in 1783 to introduce Constanze and to hopefully reconcile his and his wife's family. It was during this trip that the premier performance of the Mass in C Minor took place – October 26, 1783 at St. Peter's Abbey Church, featuring Constanze as the soprano soloist.

Just as Mozart's motivation for his C Minor Mass is shrouded in mystery, the reason for its incompleteness remains unknown to this day. Upon his arrival in Salzburg, the Kyrie and Gloria were most likely the only completed movements of the Mass; studying surviving fragments of the original manuscripts it seems that the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus were performed in Salzburg in 1783. The Credo was likely omitted and the Agnus spoken during the service on October 26, or both could have been sung with Gregorian Chant settings. Subsequently, the Credo was left incomplete and the Agnus was never composed.

During the time of the Mass' composition, Mozart was studying scores of the baroque masters Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel that were given to him by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, a well-known patron of many great composers including Haydn and Beethoven. Mozart's and interestingly his wife's fascination with the fugues of the baroque style resulted in some of the magnificent choruses one can hear in the C Minor Mass; choruses in the Gloria and the Sanctus are presented as intricate fugues and glorious double-choir movements.

Over the years, many musicologists have attempted to fill in missing parts of the surviving fragments of Mozart's “Great Mass” in order to put forth scholarly performance editions. Some have gone as far as completing this work by composing new music in the style of Mozart, basing their own composition on surviving sketches in Mozart's hand or drawing on other Mozart Masses. Sunday, we will perform only the movements Mozart completed including the two surviving sections of the Credo using the performance edition prepared by English musicologist Richard Maunder.

Mozart's Mass in C Minor will be presented at the Annual Founders Day Concert, this Sunday evening March 14th at 8:00 PM, with the Cathedral Choir, Soloists and Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Choir School Director of Music Melanie Malinka.