Original cover to the vocal score of the Mass, published by Boosey & Hawkes

Igor Stravinsky composed his Mass between 1944 and 1948. This 19-minute setting of the Roman Catholic Mass exhibits the austere, Neoclassic, anti-Romantic aesthetic that characterizes his work from about 1923 to 1951. The Mass also represents one of only a handful of extant pieces by Stravinsky that were not commissioned. As such, part of the motivation behind its composition has been cited by Robert Craft and others as the product of a spiritual necessity. Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher. ... Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Russian: И́горь Фёдорович Страви́нский Igor Fjodorovič Stravinskij) (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971) was a Russian-born composer of modern classical music. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... This article discusses the Mass as a standard form of classical music composition. ... Neoclassicism in music was a 20th century development, particularly popular in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers drew inspiration from music of the 18th century, though some of the inspiring canon was drawn as much from the Baroque period as the Classical period - for this reason... Robert Lawson Craft (October 20th, 1923 - ) is an American conductor and writer on music best known for his intimate working friendship with Igor Stravinsky, a relationship which has resulted in a number of recordings and books. ...

History

“My Mass was partly provoked by some Masses of Mozart that I found at a secondhand store in Los Angeles in 1942 or 1943. As I played through these rococo-operatic sweets-of-sin, I knew I had to write a Mass of my own, but a real one.” -Igor Stravinsky to Robert Craft^[1]

Stravinsky completed the Gloria on December 20, 1944 and finished the Kyrie at about the same time. His work on the Mass was then interrupted for several years in which his wrote his Symphony, Ebony Concerto, Concerto in D, and the ballet Orpheus. He resumed work on it in the fall of 1947 and completed it March 15, 1948. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was one of the most significant and influential of all composers of Western classical music. ...

On February 26, 1947, Irving Fine conducted the Kyrie and Gloria, accompanied by two pianos. The first complete performance occurred on October 27, 1948 in Milan. Ernest Ansermet conducted members of the chorus and orchestra of La Scala. Irving Fine (December 3, 1914–August 23, 1962) was a US composer. ... Ernest Alexandre Ansermet (November 11, 1883 – February 20, 1969) was a Swiss conductor. ...

Orchestration

The work is scored for mixed chorus, and an ensemble of 10 woodwinds (2 oboes, English horn, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, and 2 trombones). There is also some minor solo material (often sung by members of the choir) in movements 2 and 4. Stravinsky specifies in the score that "children's voices should be employed" for the highest choral register. In classical music a chorus is any substantial group of performers in a play, revue, musical or opera who act more or less as one. ... In music, a movement is a large division of a larger composition or musical form. ...

Structure

Like his 1955 work Canticum Sacrum, the Mass forms a symmetrical plan on a large-scale. The outer movements (the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei) contain homophonic choral statements with instrumental interludes, and share a tonal vocabulary including octatonic, diatonic, and modal scales. By contrast, movements 2 and 4 (the Gloria and the Sanctus) feature florid solo lines which alternate with the choral statements, and the harmony is more recognizably and consistently diatonic.^[2] Saint Marks Basilica in the evening Canticum Sacrum ad Honorem Sancti Marci Nominis is a 17-minute choral-orchestral piece composed in 1955 by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) in tribute To the City of Venice, in praise of its Patron Saint, the Blessed Mark, Apostle. ... In Music theory, the diatonic major scale (also known as the Guido scale), from the Greek diatonikos or to stretch out, is a fundamental building block of the European-influenced musical tradition. ... The term modal may refer to: Modal, a textile made from spun Beechwood cellulose Modal logic Modal verbs Mode Musical mode This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... In music, a scale is a set of musical notes that provides material for part or all of a musical work. ...

The central movement, the Credo, is the longest. It features static, syllabic, and declamatory text-setting with a limited harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary. Long stretches of text often repeat a single chord, evoking the reciting tone of Gregorian chant or the Orthodox liturgical chant that Stravinsky would have known from his childhood in Saint Petersburg. Clear setting of the text is favored over an expressive interpretation of their meaning.^[2] In the church modes of Gregorian chant the reciting tone (also dominant, tenor, tubae) is the melodic formula used for reciting psalm tones. ... Gregorian chant is also known as plainchant or plainsong and is a form of monophonic, unaccompanied singing, which was developed in the Catholic church, mainly during the period 800-1000. ... The Russian Orthodox Church (also known as the Orthodox Catholic Church of Russia) (Русская Православная церковь) is that body of Christians who are united under the Patriarch of Moscow, who in turn is in communion with the other patriarchs and primates of the Eastern Orthodox Church. ... Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, either on a single pitch or with a simple melody involving a limited set of notes and often including a great deal of repetition or statis. ... Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland...

Faith

Stravinsky chose to compose this Roman Catholic Mass despite his own Orthodox faith. He stated that this was because:

“I wanted my Mass to be used liturgically, an outright impossibility as far as the Russian Church was concerned, as Orthodox tradition proscribes musical instruments in its services- and as I can endure unaccompanied singing in only the most harmonically primitive music.”^[3]

Stravinsky also said of the Credo:

“One composes a march to facilitate marching men, so with my Credo I hope to provide an aid to the text. The Credo is the longest movement. There is much to believe.”^[3]

References

1. ^ Eric Walter White, Stravinsky: The Composer and his Works. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1979: p. 407.
2. ^ ^a b Edward Lundergan. "Modal Symmetry and Textural Symbolism in the Credo of the Stravinsky Mass. Choral Journal 45, no. 8 (March 2006): 9.
3. ^ ^a b Michael Steinberg. "Igor Stavinsky: Mass." Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 272.