Majestic Masses – November 2023
Program notes by Sanford Dole
Welcome to the opening concerts of Bay Choral Guild’s 45th season! We present to you two Masses from Austria in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Both Mozart, born in Salzburg, and Schubert, born in Vienna, were childhood prodigies whose lives were cut short by disease. Yet both had major careers and were prolific in their output. While both works on tonight’s program technically come from the Classical era, Mozart’s hearkens back to the compositional practices of the Baroque era, while Schubert’s, premiered some 32 years later, is already leaning toward a more Romantic sensibility.
As a boy Franz Schubert was taught the violin by his father, a schoolteacher, and piano by his eldest brother, Ignatz. His talent was so apparent that soon the local church organist, Michael Holzer, was engaged to teach him organ, singing, and harmony. But it all came so naturally to the 8-year-old boy that Holzer is reported to have said, “If I wished to instruct him in anything fresh he already knew it. Consequently I gave him no actual tuition but merely conversed with him and watched with silent astonishment.”
At age 11 Schubert was accepted as a choirboy in the imperial court chapel, which meant a scholarship to the Imperial and Royal City College, the principal Viennese boarding school for commoners. Among his teachers was Anton Salieri, Mozart’s former rival. Once, when the school’s orchestra conductor was absent, Schubert got the opportunity to conduct overtures and symphonies by Mozart and Haydn as well as the first two symphonies of Beethoven, a rare privilege.
In 1813, the now 16-year-old was anxious to get on with his career and left the college. His compositions, under the tutelage of Salieri, were numerous and varied. At the end of October 1813, under pressure from his family, he entered a training school for elementary teachers and the following year was teaching at his father’s school. According to Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians there was some speculation at the time that he “adopted the profession of schoolmaster to evade military conscription: assistants in any case were not exempt. He was rejected by the military because he was shorter than the minimum height of five feet. His sight was defective, too; by then he was wearing the spectacles familiar from his portraits.”
He continued studying with Salieri, and his output remained prodigious. In October of 1814 his first Mass, in F, was presented as part of the centenary celebrations of Liechtental Church in a suburb of Vienna, with Schubert himself conducting. Ten days later the Mass was repeated in the court church of St. Augustine, and both performances brought renown to the young composer. At the same time, he was reading Goethe’s Faust and set the verses now universally known as Gretchen am Spinnrade, considered his first masterpiece.
In December of 1814 Schubert began composing his Symphony #2, which he ultimately completed in March of 1815. But work on that project was interrupted, probably by a commission to compose another Mass. He completed this work, the Mass in G, in six days, and conducted the premiere shortly thereafter. The Mass is very “Schubertian” in style, particularly in the treatment and interpretation of the text. While it includes all five standard sections of the Mass ordinary, it has the character of a Missa Brevis (“short Mass”).
The work has a varied history in performance. It was first published for strings only, posthumously, under the name of a different composer. Schubert’s brother Ferdinand saw to it that the fraudulent claim was retracted and demanded a rectification to the new title page. He also augmented the scoring, adding oboes and bassoons in 1847. Critical study in 1984 by Bernard Paul confirmed that recently discovered parts for trumpets and timpani were indeed in the hand of Franz Schubert. It is probable that, wanting to cash in on performing opportunities for what is considered his finest Mass, Schubert enlarged the orchestra to conform to standard practice of the day. Our performance includes all of these instruments in a critical urtext edition published by Breitkopf & Härtel.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in 1791, six years before Schubert was born. In the last decade of his life there was little call to produce sacred music, and he wrote in this genre only a Mass, a Requiem, and two motets. Both of the large-scale works were left unfinished. In the case of the Requiem, this was, of course, due to the composer’s death.
It was eight years earlier, just after his marriage at age 26 to the 20-year-old Constanze Weber, that Mozart composed the Mass in C minor. Not written for any commission, the Mass seems to have been designed partly as a wedding present and partly to appease his family, who were unhappy with Wolfgang’s choice of a bride. Constanze was the soprano soloist when the extant movements of the Mass were performed at the small church of St. Peter in Salzburg. By all accounts, her voice was weak and shaking, and Mozart’s father and sister remained unconvinced that the composer had chosen his mate wisely.
The work is an interesting hybrid. Mozart had recently been studying the fugues of Bach and Handel. His interest in the styles of the late Baroque is apparent in the choral movements, such as the use of double chorus for the “Qui tollis” and “Sanctus” movements and the still more unusual 5-part chorus of “Gratias” and the opening movement of the Credo. There are also two amazing fugues as finales: “Cum Sancto Spiritu” concludes the Gloria and “Hosanna” the Sanctus. On the other hand, the arias are in the virtuosic style of Mozart’s Italian operas. The soprano’s “Et incarnatus” with its delightful woodwind trio is especially sublime.
When Mozart abandoned the Mass in C minor, it had only half a Credo, sketchy orchestration in the Sanctus and Benedictus, and no Agnus Dei at all. The prevailing theory for why it remained unfinished is that the composer lost interest once he had met the formal challenges of writing in the earlier styles. Had he completed it, the Mass would have been as long as Bach’s Mass in B minor. Even in the form in which Mozart left it, the work is regarded as one of the three greatest settings of the Mass, along with Bach’s masterwork and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.
Thank you for attending our show and supporting Bay Choral Guild. Please make plans to attend our next concerts on the first weekend of March 2024. You won’t want to miss this program! Two of my favorite choral works of all time are on the bill: J. S. Bach’s motet Jesu meine Freude and G. F. Handel’s somewhat madcap setting of Psalm 110, Dixit Dominus. In addition, we’ll introduce a lovely Magnificat by 17th century Italian nun Isabella Leonarda.
We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and a delightful holiday season!
As a boy Franz Schubert was taught the violin by his father, a schoolteacher, and piano by his eldest brother, Ignatz. His talent was so apparent that soon the local church organist, Michael Holzer, was engaged to teach him organ, singing, and harmony. But it all came so naturally to the 8-year-old boy that Holzer is reported to have said, “If I wished to instruct him in anything fresh he already knew it. Consequently I gave him no actual tuition but merely conversed with him and watched with silent astonishment.”
At age 11 Schubert was accepted as a choirboy in the imperial court chapel, which meant a scholarship to the Imperial and Royal City College, the principal Viennese boarding school for commoners. Among his teachers was Anton Salieri, Mozart’s former rival. Once, when the school’s orchestra conductor was absent, Schubert got the opportunity to conduct overtures and symphonies by Mozart and Haydn as well as the first two symphonies of Beethoven, a rare privilege.
In 1813, the now 16-year-old was anxious to get on with his career and left the college. His compositions, under the tutelage of Salieri, were numerous and varied. At the end of October 1813, under pressure from his family, he entered a training school for elementary teachers and the following year was teaching at his father’s school. According to Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians there was some speculation at the time that he “adopted the profession of schoolmaster to evade military conscription: assistants in any case were not exempt. He was rejected by the military because he was shorter than the minimum height of five feet. His sight was defective, too; by then he was wearing the spectacles familiar from his portraits.”
He continued studying with Salieri, and his output remained prodigious. In October of 1814 his first Mass, in F, was presented as part of the centenary celebrations of Liechtental Church in a suburb of Vienna, with Schubert himself conducting. Ten days later the Mass was repeated in the court church of St. Augustine, and both performances brought renown to the young composer. At the same time, he was reading Goethe’s Faust and set the verses now universally known as Gretchen am Spinnrade, considered his first masterpiece.
In December of 1814 Schubert began composing his Symphony #2, which he ultimately completed in March of 1815. But work on that project was interrupted, probably by a commission to compose another Mass. He completed this work, the Mass in G, in six days, and conducted the premiere shortly thereafter. The Mass is very “Schubertian” in style, particularly in the treatment and interpretation of the text. While it includes all five standard sections of the Mass ordinary, it has the character of a Missa Brevis (“short Mass”).
The work has a varied history in performance. It was first published for strings only, posthumously, under the name of a different composer. Schubert’s brother Ferdinand saw to it that the fraudulent claim was retracted and demanded a rectification to the new title page. He also augmented the scoring, adding oboes and bassoons in 1847. Critical study in 1984 by Bernard Paul confirmed that recently discovered parts for trumpets and timpani were indeed in the hand of Franz Schubert. It is probable that, wanting to cash in on performing opportunities for what is considered his finest Mass, Schubert enlarged the orchestra to conform to standard practice of the day. Our performance includes all of these instruments in a critical urtext edition published by Breitkopf & Härtel.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in 1791, six years before Schubert was born. In the last decade of his life there was little call to produce sacred music, and he wrote in this genre only a Mass, a Requiem, and two motets. Both of the large-scale works were left unfinished. In the case of the Requiem, this was, of course, due to the composer’s death.
It was eight years earlier, just after his marriage at age 26 to the 20-year-old Constanze Weber, that Mozart composed the Mass in C minor. Not written for any commission, the Mass seems to have been designed partly as a wedding present and partly to appease his family, who were unhappy with Wolfgang’s choice of a bride. Constanze was the soprano soloist when the extant movements of the Mass were performed at the small church of St. Peter in Salzburg. By all accounts, her voice was weak and shaking, and Mozart’s father and sister remained unconvinced that the composer had chosen his mate wisely.
The work is an interesting hybrid. Mozart had recently been studying the fugues of Bach and Handel. His interest in the styles of the late Baroque is apparent in the choral movements, such as the use of double chorus for the “Qui tollis” and “Sanctus” movements and the still more unusual 5-part chorus of “Gratias” and the opening movement of the Credo. There are also two amazing fugues as finales: “Cum Sancto Spiritu” concludes the Gloria and “Hosanna” the Sanctus. On the other hand, the arias are in the virtuosic style of Mozart’s Italian operas. The soprano’s “Et incarnatus” with its delightful woodwind trio is especially sublime.
When Mozart abandoned the Mass in C minor, it had only half a Credo, sketchy orchestration in the Sanctus and Benedictus, and no Agnus Dei at all. The prevailing theory for why it remained unfinished is that the composer lost interest once he had met the formal challenges of writing in the earlier styles. Had he completed it, the Mass would have been as long as Bach’s Mass in B minor. Even in the form in which Mozart left it, the work is regarded as one of the three greatest settings of the Mass, along with Bach’s masterwork and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.
Thank you for attending our show and supporting Bay Choral Guild. Please make plans to attend our next concerts on the first weekend of March 2024. You won’t want to miss this program! Two of my favorite choral works of all time are on the bill: J. S. Bach’s motet Jesu meine Freude and G. F. Handel’s somewhat madcap setting of Psalm 110, Dixit Dominus. In addition, we’ll introduce a lovely Magnificat by 17th century Italian nun Isabella Leonarda.
We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and a delightful holiday season!
