Mass in G Minor for Soli (S.A.T.B.) and Double Chorus (Curwen Edition)

Description

The Mass in G minor of 1922 has been described as the vocal equivalent of the great Tallis Fantasia -- double choir (double string orchestra), four soloists (string quartet) -- and the methods of the Elizabeth fantasy are employed, for instance the use of a motif, always slightly varied, in the different voice parts, thereby giving a unity to the whole colloquy. Strangely, though its mastery is indisputable and its authorship undeniable, the Mass is in some respects the most anonymous of Vaughan Williams’s works. This is as it should be. He wrote it for liturgical use, the music being subservient to religious ceremony. There is none of the elaborate augmentation of the great Masses of Bach, Beethoven and Berlioz, nor indeed is there the intellectual power of Byrd. Most of Vaughan Williams’s religious music is of an emotional power which would have been out of place in a setting of the Ordinary. It should not be thought, however, that there is anything austere about this Mass. Its richness is a by-product of the glowing counterpoint as well as being a fundamental of Vaughan Williams’s approach to such a task. The influences of Debussy, and therefore of Mussorgsky, can still be discerned in the Mass, for there is something of Pelléas et Mélisande there. The anonymous bon mot about ‘L’Après-Midi d’un Vaughan’ was perceptive as well as witty. The Mass is also indicative of the subtle and deep change which had been wrought by his experiences since 1914 in Vaughan Williams’s nationalism. Like the Tallis Fantasia, the Mass was conceived in terms of the acoustics of a cathedral or church and, unlike the Fantasia, it does not transplant well to a concert- hall. Its dedicatees, Holst and his Whitsuntide Singers, performed it whenever possible in church or cathedral, Thaxted, Chichester, and once at Canterbury whence Holst wrote to Adeline Vaughan Williams that he had discovered that it might have been ‘written for this cathedral’. Read more

Features:

Product Details:

• Sheet music: 46 pages
• Publisher: G. Schirmer Inc.; 1st edition (1970)
• Language: English
• Package Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.1 inches

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