Mozart's Masses
Mozart's Mass in C
Gramophone Choice
Mass in C, ‘Coronation’, K317. Vesperae solennes de confessore, K339. Epistle Sonata in C, K278
Emma Kirkby (sop) Catherine Robbin (mez) John Mark Ainsley (ten) Michael George (bass) Winchester Cathedral Choir; Winchester Quiristers Academy of Ancient Music / Christopher Hogwood with Alastair Ross (org)
L’Oiseau-Lyre 436 585-2OH (54' · DDD · T/t) Buy from Amazon
It’s difficult to think of many recordings of Mozart’s church music that so happily capture its character – the particular mixture of confidence, jubilation and contemplation – as Hogwood’s. His unfussy direction, broad phrasing, lively but generally unhurried tempi and happy details of timing serve splendidly in the Coronation Mass, the finest of Mozart’s completed Mass settings; the solemnity of the Kyrie, the fine swing of the Gloria and the energy of the Credo, with due pause for its rapt moment at the ‘Et incarnatus’, all these come over effectively. Arguably the ‘Osanna’ is rather quick, but its jubilation is splendid. And the sweetness of the Benedictus is ravishing.
Not more so, however, than the Agnus, for there, at a decidedly slow tempo, Hogwood allows Emma Kirkby to make the most of this very sensuous music, which she duly most beautifully does. The soloists are altogether an excellent team, with two refined voices in the middle and Michael George a firm and sturdy bass. The inclusion of the K278 Epistle Sonata is a happy notion. The Vesperae solennes de confessore is a setting of the five Vesper psalms and the Magnificat, made in 1780, a year after the Mass, for some church feast in Salzburg. With admirable singing from the choir and a spacious recording with exceptionally good stereo separation that properly conveys the ecclesiastical ambience, this is a disc to treasure.
Additional Recommendations
Mass in C minor, K427 (ed Eder)
Gillian Keith (sop) Tove Dahlberg (mez) Thomas Cooley (ten) Nathan Berg (bass-bar) Handel and Haydn Society / Harry Christophers
Coro COR16084 (54' ∙ DDD · Recorded live 2010) Buy from Amazon
Mozart was alone among his contemporaries in his ability to grasp the lessons of Handel and Bach. He became entranced by their music shortly after his move to Vienna at ‘academies’ held at the residence of the imperial librarian, Gottfried van Swieten, and began to absorb Baroque textures and techniques into the most up-to-date Classical forms of which he was master. The C minor Mass is by some distance his contrapuntal masterpiece and, had he finished it, would have been his first public demonstration of this rapprochement between styles. And this mixture of styles made the C minor Mass an ideal work during the digital boom-time of the 1980s for period-instrument ensembles, well versed in the Baroque, to make an early foray into the music of the later 18th century.
Christophers opts for the completion by Helmut Eder. The Kyrie and Gloria are complete in Mozart’s hand. Problems arise in the Credo, only two movements of which exist. Eder’s string parts for the ‘Incarnatus’ over-egg this divine pudding while his decision not to add trumpets to the C major ‘Credo in unum Deum’ robs the movement of the grandeur it surely deserves but also fails to make explicit its similarity to the opening of Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum.
The mixed voices of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society are fully equal to Mozart’s florid choral writing. As regards the soloists, the onus falls mostly on the two women, well matched in the ‘Domine Deus’ and ‘Quoniam’; Gillian Keith is touching in the ‘Christe’ if a little harried in the ‘Incarnatus’, while Tove Dahlberg admits only the slightest scoop in the wide leaps of the ‘Laudamus’. The two men wait patiently before combining effectively with the women in the ‘Quoniam’ (tenor) and ‘Benedictus’ (tenor and bass). This disc is more than simply a souvenir of an occasion audibly enjoyed by the good burghers of Boston. It also presents a commanding and compelling reading of an important if often overlooked monument in Mozart’s musical development.
Mass in C minor, ‘Great’, K427 (ed Schmitt/Gardiner)
Sylvia McNair (sop) Diana Montague (mez) Anthony Rolfe Johnson (ten) Cornelius Hauptmann (bass) Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque Soloists / John Eliot Gardiner
Philips 420 210-2PH (54' · DDD · T/t) Buy from Amazon
Writers on Mozart sometimes take him to task for the alleged mixture of styles in the C minor Mass, in particular the use of florid, ‘operatic’ solo writing amid all the severe ecclesiastical counterpoint. To object is to misunderstand the nature of Mozart’s religion, but it takes a performance as stylistically accomplished as this one to make the point in practice. The usual stumbling-block is the ‘Et incarnatus’, with its richly embellished solo line and its wind obbligatos. Sung as it is here, by Sylvia McNair, beautifully refined in detail, it’s indeed passionate, but passionately devout. McNair is deeply affecting in the ‘Christe’, taken quite spaciously and set in a measured Kyrie of great cumulative power which also has some fine, clean singing from the Monteverdi Choir.
As with Gardiner’s version of the Requiem, you might wish for the sound of a boys’ choir (why go to the trouble of having authentic instruments if you then use unauthentic voices?) but the bright, forward tone of his sopranos is very persuasive. The music is all strongly characterised: the ‘Gloria’ jubilant, the ‘Qui tollis’ grandly elegiac with its solemn, inexorable march rhythm and its dying phrases echoed between the choirs, the ‘Credo’ full of vitality. Some of the ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ fugue is too heavily accented, though. Nevertheless, a confident recommendation.
