IMSLP Forums

Dear all,

From may on, till june 2012 I have to prepare every month a complete (kyrie, gloria, sanctus, agnus dei) four voices mass in my church (old-catholic church, The Hague, Netherlands).. I would be very happy if you could help me with this. All suggestions are very welcome!

Sincerely,

Toon Renssen

There are lots of good masses out there. Of course, Mozart, Haydn (also Michael Haydn has excellent masses), Schubert come to mind from the classical era, Palestrina, Josquin, Monteverdi or Orlando di lasso from earlier times. But there are other, less known composers:

• Caldara (baroque)
• Eberlin (baroque)
• Fux (baroque)
• Albrechtsberger (classical)
• Franck, Vierne, Widor, Gounod (romantic)
• Dvorak (romantic)
• Bruckner's early masses
• Kodaly (modern)
• etc.

Of course, the choice mostly depends on the quality of the choir and the orchestra.

You might also get some ideas from the programs of the St. Augustin here in Vienna (http://www.hochamt.at/), the cathedral St.Stefan in Vienna (http://www.dommusik-wien.at/), or from Westminster Cathedral in London.

Bruckner's masses, as well as Franck's mass, are some of my favorites in the genre. Poulenc's "Mass in G" is written for SATB alone, and although is modern is very nice. My only other recomendation is Britten's "Missa Brevis". It is written for organ and SATB, but the pieces are very short. The entire work takes about 10 minutes to perform.

dwil9798 wrote:Bruckner's masses, as well as Franck's mass, are some of my favorites in the genre.

I agree that Bruckner's masses are beautiful, but they are also not easy (actually, the f minor mass was refused by any orchestra and choir in Vienna in the 1890s as unplayable. Bruckner then paid for an orchestra himself to have the mass performed!). In particular, when your have to perform a mass every Sunday,you don't have enough time to rehearse the hard parts...

With Franck, I absolutely agree... In particular, if you have a harp,

My personal favorites are Dvoraks Mass in D (op.86), and Michael Haydn's Missa Sancti Hieronymi (Oboenmesse, MH 254) and Michael Haydn's Missa Hispanica.

Cheers,
Reinhold

My personal favorites are Dvoraks Mass in D (op.86), and Michael Haydn's Missa Sancti Hieronymi (Oboenmesse, MH 254) and Michael Haydn's Missa Hispanica.

The Dvorak is my favorite mass as well. Such a terrific piece. Another mass that is amazing that is never played and is by a prominent composer is Carl Maria von Weber's Missa Sancta No. 1 in E-flat major. I strongly suggest looking into this piece. Other good masses include Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Mass in E-flat major and Haydn's Heiligmesse. Hummel's Te Deum is quite good as well, and so is Dvorak's.

I didn't know that C M Von Weber had written a Mass, let alone two.

I didn't know that C M Von Weber had written a Mass, let alone two.

Yes, I strongly recommend you to listen to them. The Gloria movement is so sublime. The fugue at that end of the movement is amazing as well.

You have a choir and instrumental musicians at your disposal who have the skill to prepare a new Mass every month??

You are an extremely fortunate person!

Aldona

You may have a look at he following website: http://www.mhoessl.de.

Notenschreiber

Hello,

You may be interested by unpublished masses ZWV2 to ZWV16 and others by J.D. Zelenka.
At http://www.jdzelenka.net, there are audio mock-ups and free scores in pdf.

Raiatea

Well you give the strings a holiday... and the women too... and premiere my Mass for Three Voices... the bayan part is optional.. but could be played on the organ or not as was necessary...... but it does have all 6 movements and takes 20 mins.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Mass_for_Three_Vo ... on,_Peter)

score and mp3 rehearsal file on the site!

The model is William Byrd's Three Part.. but he wrote 4 and 5 part Masses as well... which are quite as wonderful as the Three Part Mass.

all can be found at

http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/William_Byrd

Peter Dyson

Glad to see that you're no longer being hassled by Captcha, Peter ;-)

Another suggestion, César Franck's early Mass in A major is hardly ever performed, another curious absence from the repertoire like Weber's masses.

PML

allegroamabile wrote:

I didn't know that C M Von Weber had written a Mass, let alone two.

Yes, I strongly recommend you to listen to them. The Gloria movement is so sublime. The fugue at that end of the movement is amazing as well.

Where can I find a recording?

Where can I find a recording?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... sa&x=0&y=0

This is it, but the labeling is incorrect. The first six tracks are part of his Missa sancta No. 1, with the movements correctly labeled. I hope you enjoy this great work.

http://www.giamusic.com/ - They have EVERYTHING that has to do with catholic music for all sorts of instrumentations. I play a lot in church to, but it's usally me (Trumpet) plus organ (and singers, depending on which organist I'm playing (one who only uses the swell manual, no pedals or great AT ALL ), as there's a couple different music groups in my parishes), so I have a small bias towards stuff with trumpet parts . But yeah, GIA is a REALLY good place to look.