Schubert's Masses show rather the influence of Beethoven's not very impressive first Mass, which they easily surpass in interest, though Schubert did not take pains, like Beethoven, to get his Latin text correct. The last two are later than Beethoven's Mass in D and contain many splendid passages, besides a dramatic (though not realistic) treatment of the Agnus Dei.
Weber's two Masses (G and E flat) are excellent works; the larger one (in E flat) achieving an ecclesiastical style as good as Cherubini's and much less dry. Otherwise the five Masses and two Requiems of Cherubini (q.v.) are the most important works of their period. Those that were written within Beethoven's lifetime made him regard Cherubini as the greatest master of the day. Since Schubert's time the Viennese tradition of Mass music has been worthily represented by Bruckner (q.v.). Dame Ethel Smyth's Mass (189o) owes nothing to tradition, but is undoubtedly a work inspired by its text.
4. Lutheran Masses.—Music with Latin words is not excluded from the Lutheran Church, and the Kyrie and Gloria are fre quently sung in succession and entitled a Mass. Thus the four Short Masses of Bach are called short, not because they are on a small scale (which they are not), but because they consist only of the Kyrie and Gloria. Bach treats each clause of his text as sanctum," in which five dogmatic clauses are enshrined like relics in a casket, furnishes a beautiful decorative design, as a point of repose. Then comes a voluminous ecclesiastical fugue, "Confiteor unum baptisma," leading, as through the door and world-wide spaces of the Catholic Church, to that veil which is not all dark ness to the eye of faith. At the words "Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum" the music plunges suddenly into sublime and mys terious modulations in a slow tempo, until it breaks out as suddenly into a vivace e allegro of broad but terse design, which comes to its climax rapidly and ends as abruptly as possible, the last chord being carefully written as a short note without a pause. This gives finality to the whole Credo and contrasts admirably with the coldly formal instrumental end of the Resurrexit three movements further back. Now, such subtleties might be thought beyond the power of conscious planning. But Bach's vivace e allegro is an arrangement of the second chorus of a church can tata, Gott man lobet dich in der Stille; and in the cantata the chorus has introductory and final symphonies and a middle sec tion with a da capo! Until fairly late in the 19th century the Sing-Akademie of Berlin (and perhaps other choral societies in Germany) main tained a laudable tradition according to which its director glorified his office in a Lutheran Mass (Kyrie and Gloria) for i6-part un accompanied chorus. Some of these works (notably that of
C. F. C. Fasch) are very fine.
5. The Requiem.—The Missa pro defunctis or Requiem Mass has tended to produce special musical forms for each individual a separate movement, alternating choruses with groups of arias; a method independently adopted by Mozart in a few early works and in the great unfinished Mass in C minor. This method, carried throughout an entire Mass, will fit into no liturgy ; and Bach's B minor Mass must be regarded as an oratorio.
The most interesting case is the setting of the words : "Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi.— Amen." The greatest difficulty in any elaborate instrumental setting of the Credo is the inevitable anti-climax after the Resurrexit. Bach contrives to give this anti-climax a definite artistic value ; all the more from the fact that his Crucifixus and Resurrexit, and the contrast between them, show him at the height of his power. To the end of his Resurrexit chorus he appends an orchestral ritornello, formally summing up the ma terial of the chorus and thereby destroying all sense of finality as a member of a large group. After this the aria "Et in spiritum case. The text of the Dies Irae imperatively demands either a dramatic elaboration or none at all. Even in the i6th century it could not possibly be set to continuous music on the lines of the Gloria and Credo. Fortunately, its Gregorian canto fermo is very beautiful and formal; and the i6th century masters either, like Palestrina, left it to be sung as plain-chant, or set it in versicles (like their settings of the Magnificat and other canticles) for two groups of voices alternatively, or for the choir in alternation with the plain chant of the priests.
Of later settings, Schumann's belongs to the days of his failing power; Henschel's is a work of great sincerity and reticent beauty; while the three other outstanding masterpieces renounce all ecclesiastical style. Berlioz seizes his opportunity like a musical E. A. Poe; Dvoiak is eclectic ; and Verdi towers above both in flaming sincerity, no more able to repress his theatrical idioms than Haydn could repress his cheerfulness.
Brahms's Deutsches requiem has nothing to do with the Mass for the dead, being simply a large choral work on a text compiled from the Bible by the composer. (D. F. T. ; X.)