MASS IN C MAJOR, K257

INTRODUCTION

This has been the most difficult of Mozart’s masses for me to approach because it sounds so different to my ear from anything that has gone before or will come after.  Manuscript watermarks place its composition after “K262″, “K220″, “K258″, and “K259″, probably about a year later, in late 1776 or early 1777. The scoring is identical to “K258” and “K259”:  two oboes, two trumpets in C, timpani, two violins, bass, and organ continuo, with three trombones doubling the alto, tenor, and bass vocal parts.  Like the previous three masses, it is presumed to have been first performed in the cathedral with the archbishop presiding.

For context, let me jump ahead in time.  Mozart and his father would request leave to travel three different times in 1777.  The first was in March and drew no response.  The second was in August.  The archbishop put them off, but did remark to Leopold that Wolfgang knew nothing of music and should go to a conservatory in Naples to learn.  His Grace did not, however, offer to fund such education.  What he did do was bring in, at over twice Leopold’s salary, the Italian Giacomo Rust to be the new kapellmeister.  He also hired, at three times Leopold’s salary, the castrato soprano Francesco Ceccarelli.  Power struggles erupted between the German and Italian factions at court and also between Michael Haydn and Leopold, both of whom had, of course, been passed over for kapellmeister.

Leopold finally wrote (and Wolfgang copied out as if from himself) an obsequious, sarcastic, disrespectful request for a leave of absence, arguing that “the Gospel” exhorts the faithful to go into the world and make money based on ability, playing on the double meaning of the Latin word for “talent” in Matthew 25.  The archbishop responded sharply in his own handwriting that father and son were both henceforth free to make their way in the world “according to the Gospel”.

Wolfgang, delighted to be unemployed, set off in September for Munich, Mannheim, and Paris with his mother as chaperone.  Leopold had to grovel for his own reinstatement, which was eventually granted with the warning that he never again make trouble.  His emotional hold on Wolfgang would be forever lost.  His narcissistic injuries from the archbishop were so great that he never recovered his fighting spirit, though he would live ten more years.

I think that the dissonance in court had to be brewing at the time of this mass and that Mozart intended it to be his last in Salzburg.  To my ears, he has directed it more at the archbishop than toward God, and it suffers for it.  Beautiful melodies abound as always and the music is confident and assertive, but this mass is also one of the most serious pieces you are ever likely to encounter in a major key.  Much of the music also sounds what I can only describe as angry and, with few exceptions, does not support the words well.  The writing is Type I throughout and there is no polytextuality—and no playfulness.

We have seen Mozart be irreverent many times and get away with it.  I find this music to be, rather, irreligious, a work of largely secular defiance and independence.  I do not find it effective as a setting of the words of the mass, unlike any of his others.  I think it is best listened to as a kind of symphony with four-part chorus and soloists used as musical instruments who sing what could be any Latin syllables.  With this bias in mind, I will approach the movements of the mass as we have come to know them.  I prefer the Philips version, one of the few in that set not conducted by Herbert Kegel.  This one is by Colin Davis and fulfills the virtues I find in Kegel of separate but equal presences of soloists, chorus, and orchestra.  In addition, he has the doubling trombones play very loud in several places, creating what sounds like an independent part, to great effect.

For comparison, I have listened carefully to the recordings by Matt, Harnoncourt, Neumann, and another I have by Stephen Cleobury, and they all strike me the same way.

On the other hand, I have found among some pretty big names no pundit with a single negative comment on “K257”.  It is described as “cheerful and lively” (unattributed liner notes, Cleobury recording) and “a song mass” (Einstein, “Mozart, His Character, His Work”).  It is praised for its “simplicity and direct expression” (Doughty, liner notes, Brilliant Classics set), “reverence and unequivocal warmth” (Beaujean, liner notes, Philips set), and “warmth and geniality of expression” (Beaujean in Zaslaw’s “The Compleat Mozart”).  It is, indeed, “Mozart’s greatest mass” (Heartz, “Haydn, Mozart, and the Viennese School”).

You will have to be the final judge.

KYRIE

The Kyrie sets the tone for the mass with a ponderous, tension-filled slow introduction on the words “Kyrie eleison“.  The chorus and soloists fairly growl their words:  “Praise God (if we must)”.  The upbeat main section follows, with the general structure “Kyrie”—“Christe”—“Kyrie”—“Christe”—“Kyrie”.  The most prominent part of the chorus’s “Kyrie” theme is three repetitions of “Eleison” set to two notes which waver back and forth.  This has a “jeering” sound.  I do not know what eighteenth-century Germans said when they stuck out their tongues at someone, but this music comes out, “Nyahh! Nyahh! Nyahh!” in twenty-first century English.  The soloists sing a brief and lovely “Christe eleison“.  The chorus return with their jeering music.  The soloists sing the “Christe” again and the whole thing wraps up with a flourish of trumpets and timpani as a sort of triumphal march.  It is not, however, God’s triumph which I hear, but rather Mozart’s intent to triumph over the archbishop.

GLORIA

The Gloria consists of nine brief sections adhering to the conventions we have seen before:  “Gloria in excelsis“, “Et in terra pax“, “Laudamus te“, “Gratias agimus“, “Domine Deus“, “Qui tollis“, “Quoniam“, “Cum Sancto Spiritu“, and “Amen“.  The theme of “Gloria in excelsis” returns for “Quoniam”.  The theme of “Et in terra pax” returns for “Amen”.  All sections are for chorus except “Domine Deus”, which is for solo quartet.

The movement is conceived as a restless, urgent song whose beautiful melodies do not support the words.  The violin part is positively furious.  I imagine the heavy-handed timpani along with the vocal and trombone motif on the words “Gloria” and “Quoniam” to represent Mozart’s fantasy of bashing the archbishop over the head.  With the exception of “Et in terra pax”,  the choral parts are fairly shouted out.  In “Domine Deus”, for solo quartet, the individual singers deliver their lines with defiant sneers.  Even the final “Amen” sounds like something shouted over the edge of a canyon in hopes of receiving at least an echo as an answer.

CREDO

The frenetic pace continues in the Credo as does the archbishop-bashing sound and the choral shouting.  Mozart keeps the tone serious and businesslike, though again the melodies are catchy and infectious.  There is a basic fast-slow-fast structure, with twelve subsections overall, mostly chorus and mostly Type I:  “Credo in unum Deum”, “Et in unum Dominum”, “Deum de Deo”, “Qui propter nos homines”, “Et incarnatus est” (solo quartet), “Crucifixus” (chorus and solo quartet), “Et resurrexit”, “Et iterum venturus est”, “Cujus regni”, “Et in Spiritum Sanctum’ (solo quartet), “Et unam sanctam catholicam”, and “Et vitam venturi”.  Conductor Davis has the doubling trombones play so loud during the subsections “Deum de Deo” and “Et vitam venturi saeculi” that they sound like a separately-written instrumental part.  Nice touch!

Mozart is at least civil in observing most of the conventions he has established before for the Credo movement:  at the words “Descendit de caelis“, the music descends (but not before ascending peevishly several times first); at the words “Et ascendit in caelum“, the music ascends; and the music pauses respectfully for the words “Et mortuos” and “Mortuorum“.

There are three recurring theme groups in the fast parts.  Theme 1 begins with “Credo in unum Deum“, Theme 2 with “Et in unum Dominum“, Theme 3 with “Deum de Deo“.  “Qui propter nos homines” completes the first section.

Starting the slow section, “Et incarnatus est“, for solo quartet, is beautiful, cerebral, and cold.  This grave little waltz, with charming orchestral interludes, keeps the words at more than arm’s length.  Ironically, an angry tone suits the “Crucifixus” perfectly, the timpani here echoing nails in the cross and the chorus’s brief Type II indignation rising to a fevered pitch.

The second fast section begins with Theme 1 at “Et resurrexit”, Theme 2 at “Et iterum venturus est”, and Theme 3 at “Cujus regni non erit finis“.

The next subsection, “Et in Spiritum Sanctum“, is surely one of Mozart’s strangest children.  Mechanical and dissonant, it sounds as if it is being sung by a quartet of robots.  The “canaries and elephants” sound of this text in “K194” was odd, but this is downright peculiar.

A head-thumping variant of Theme 1 is welcome indeed at “Et unam sanctam catholicam“.  The trumpets get a special treat at “Confiteor” and continue to play loudly until the end with lots of timpani, assuring the archbishop that the music is Good.  The brief Type II theme that appears at “Et vitam venturi saeculi” “wants” to be an upside-down variant of Theme 2, but may well be new.  It occupies the space between the last occurrence of Theme 1 and Theme 3 and has a similar rhythm to Theme 2.  I’ve listened to it fifty times and I can’t make up my mind.  You decide.  Theme 3 returns for more of “Et vitam venturi” and “Amen“.

A final unifying feature of the movement is the chorus’s repeated cries of “Credo, credo“, similar to the device in “K192”, although the four-note theme here is different and generally sounds loud and angry.  It appears before the introduction of  Theme 1 and Theme 2 but is an integral part of Theme 3, occurring at the same time as the text of the phrase.  Perhaps this is a protest by Mozart against the forbidding of polytextuality.  If you can’t overlap words, just drown them out, and who could object to using the holy central word of the movement to do it?

The “Credo” motif precedes the new music at “Et incarnatus est” and the returns of Theme 1 at “Et resurrexit” and Theme 2 at “Et iterum venturus est”.  The use of the drowning-out device with the return of Theme 3 at “Cujus regni” effectively squashes any chance of the playfulness with this text that we have seen so often before.

The “Credo” cry not only introduces “Et in Spiritum Sanctum”, it interrupts it three times, as if annoyed at the irritating nonmusical phrases.

It occurs three more times, including the merged Theme 3 at “Et vitam venturi saeculi”, where it obliterates even the word “Amen” several times.  There is finally a “clean” “Amen” at the end.

Since the two-word phrase is almost always repeated and is used about four times in the course of each instance of Theme 3, I count sixty-four iterations of the word “Credo” in the movement—an average of one every seven seconds.  This saturation of the “Credo” cry undermines its value as an expression of faith.  I see it as Mozart addressing the archbishop directly, saying:  “I believe I can make it—without you”. 

4-“Credo”	“Credo in unum Deum” (Th 1)
4-“Credo”	“Et in unum Dominum” (Th2)
8-“Credo/Deum de Deum” (Th 3)
0-	“Qui propter nos homines/Descendit”
4-“Credo”	“Et incarnatus est/Crucifixus”
4-“Credo”	“Et resurrexit” (Th 1)
4-“Credo”	“Et iterum venturus est” (Th 2)
8-	“Credo/Cujus regni non erit finis” (Th 3)
4-“Credo”	“Et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominum, et vivificantem”
2-“Credo”	“Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit”
4-“Credo”	“Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur”
2-“Credo”	“Qui locutus est per Prophetas”
4-“Credo”	“Et unum sanctam Catholicam” (Th 1)
0-	“Et vitam venturi saeculi, Amen” (Th 2 upside down?)
8-	“Credo/Et vitam venturi saeculi, Amen” (Th 3)
4-“Credo” “	Amen”

SANCTUS

This movement, all choral, starts with the recurring “Credo” cry—not from this mass, but the one from “K192”—to set the word “Sanctus“.  This motif would seem to have had a better unifying function in the former mass than here.  The only musical reason I can think of for resurrecting it is to hammer away at “I believe” as above.  Mozart does not even develop the theme, but quickly abandons it at “Pleni sunt caeli“, which wants to sound majestic but does not rise above strident and loud.

Though restless and choppy, “Hosanna” is more successful.  The voices of the chorus “toss around” short portions of the text, which has the effect of “neighbor telling neighbor” the good news about God.  In addition, the repeated use of high notes in the melody effectively reflects the text “Hosanna in the highest”.

OK, wake up, Professor Tovey!  We’re still looking for the place he claims has chorus and orchestra playing “fortissimo” on the third syllable of “Hosanna” “… at every single one of the forty or fifty repetitions of the word” (see “K66”, “K167”, and “K262”).

This section does have forty or fifty repetitions of “Hosanna”, and in exactly six of them where the chorus sing “-na,´Mozart indeed has fortissimo indications in both choral and orchestral parts.  There is no musical reason for this quirk, as in each case, “-san-” is sung both on a higher note and on the strong first beat of the measure and musically “wants” to have the stronger emphasis.

Davis largely ignores the dynamic misdirection in favor of a more natural phrasing, but Harnoncourt, usually opting for the most homogeneous sound of the three sets, has the right idea.  Was Mozart’s old friend Father Cajetan Hagenauer in attendance at the first performance of this mass?  Could this be a glimmer of humor through the general grimness?  If so, it’s just about the only playful moment.

I must conclude that Sir Donald is off-base concerning his overblown claim.  He makes it, by the way while discussing the “malicious” joke on the last page of Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, “K299”, where he says that the violins and violas “interfere” by playing the same thing as the harp, thereby drowning out the soloist’s last phrase.  I looked at the score and the strings are completely silent during that phrase.  I conclude that he is wrong about this as well.

BENEDICTUS

OK, forget everything I have said up until now.

“Benedictus qui venit” is a beautiful, perfect mass section, supportive of the words in every way, with exquisite vocal writing for the solo quartet and no trumpets, timpani, or trombones.  When I first heard it, I wondered if somebody had switched manuscripts with “K259″, whose pissy “Benedictus” would seem more suited to the tone of “K257″.  However, the former is also funny, like a wet cat, and there’s nothing funny about “K257”.  Also, the current leisurely gem, at nearly five and one-half minutes, is way out of proportion for “K259″, which is all about short.  I see it as Mozart taking pity on the poor listener.

It is constructed as a meandering song for soloists with a foreshortened repeat of the first few phrases.  Don’t worry so much about identifying themes, but do listen for the interplay among the singers and the orchestra.

In the introduction, the orchestra first play the theme with which the soloists will also begin.  It also introduces a clocklike “walking” figure in the basses and an ascending and descending figure in the violins, both of which repeat to great effect as the four singers enter and weave together their overlapping lines.

There is not a note out of place, whether the soloists are accompanied or, in one place, unaccompanied.

Davis is the only conductor in the four sets who gives each soloist and the orchestra equal emphasis.  When I listen, I let myself be mesmerized by the simple bass, letting the singers and violins just fill in the space above.

The return of “Hosanna” completes the movement.

AGNUS DEI

Scant respite, however.  “Agnus Dei” returns to the ponderous, turgid sound of the Kyrie.  The chorus grumble their way through most of their bloated music.  At the beginnings of the two “Miserere” iterations, the solo quartet have two brief gentle passages, quickly eclipsed by the annoyed complaints of the chorus.

DONA NOBIS PACEM

The quartet use their same gentle music to begin “Dona Nobis Pacem“.  However, the chorus summarily reject this with their own heavy-handed finale.  Whether Emperor Joseph ever actually criticized Mozart’s opera “The Abduction from the Seraglio” as having “too many notes”,  I will make that claim about this section.

Too many notes is precisely what is going on here, but I cannot believe that Mozart does not know exactly what he is doing.  The tone is mocking and sarcastic and the ending seems to go on forever.  It is only about two and one-half minutes, but I count at least four false endings—#1, #2, #3, #4—(the first three of which repeat) in which it sounds as if Mozart is mocking the words “Grant us peace” to suggest “I’ll never have any peace in this place”.  The actual ending is one final repetition of the soft and gentle phrase, the music that could have been the entire “Dona Nobis Pacem” if Mozart were not so angry.

–08/04/2014