Missa Solemnis Research Articles

Choral masterworks: a listener's guide

Michael Steinberg's highly successful listener's guides - Symphony and Concerto - have been universally praised for their blend of captivating biography, crystal clear musical analysis, and delightful humor. Now Steinberg follows these two greatly admired volumes with Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide, the only such guide available to this most popular of musical forms. Here are more than fifty illuminating essays on the classic choral masterworks, ranging from Handel's Messiah, Bach's Mass in B Minor, and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, to works by Haydn, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and many others. Steinberg spans the entire history of classical music, from such giants of the Romantic era as Verdi and Berlioz, to leading modern composers such as Elgar, Rachmaninoff, Vaughan Williams, and Stravinsky, to contemporary masters such as John Adams and Charles Wuorinen. For each piece, Steinberg includes a fascinating biographical account of the work's genesis, often spiced with wonderful asides, such as the true story of Mozart's Requiem - Salieri had nothing to do with the composition of it, nor did he poison Mozart, who most likely died of rheumatic fever. The author also includes an astute musical analysis of each piece, one that casual music lovers can easily appreciate and that musicians and more serious fans will find invaluable. The book also includes basic information such as the various movements of the work, the organization of the chorus and orchestra, and brief historical notes on early performances. More than twenty million Americans perform regularly in choirs or choruses. Choral Masterworks will appeal not only to concert goers and CD collectors, but also to this vast multitude of choral performers, an especially engaged and active community.

Music in Serbian literary magazine and Yugoslav ideology

It is worth noting that the important journal of the history of Serbian literature and music, the Serbian Literary Magazine (1901 - 1914, 1920 1941), became more Yugoslav-oriented within a relatively short period following its inception. From its early beginning to 1906, the Magazine?s musical critics did not actively express its Yugoslav ideology. But from 1907 there was an increase of interest in both the music and the musicians from Croatia and Slovenia. In 1911 the Croatian Opera spent almost two weeks in Belgrade performing; the composer and musicologist, Miloje Milojevic began to develop the idea of union with Slavs from the South in a critical analysis he rendered of their performance. Until the end of the first/old series, SLM highlighted a noticeable number of texts about Croatians and Slovenians: critical reviews of Croatian musical books, concerts of Slovenian artists in Belgrade, score editions of Slovenian music performances of instrument soloists from Zagreb in Belgrade - as well as notes about the musical work of Croatian Academy (Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb). Echoes of rare tours of Serbian musicians in South Slavs cultural centers did not go unheard, either. In the older series of the journal, lasting and two-fold relations had already begun to lean towards Yugoslav ideology. From one side, even before World War I, Yugoslav ideology in the Magazine was accepted as a program objective of Serbian political and cultural elite. On the other, the journal does not appear to have negotiated any of its aesthetic criterion when estimating musical events that came from Zagreb and Ljubljana to Belgrade - at least not "in the name of Yugoslav ideology". In later series of SLM, the Yugoslav platform was being represented as official ideological statehood of newly created Kingdoms of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (1918), i.e., the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929). At that time, the Magazine had occasional literary cooperation from Croatian musical writers such as Lujo Safranek-Kavic, Bozidar Sirola and Antun Dobronic. Their articles described activities of the Croatian National Theatre and evaluated new works of Croatian composers. But they were not at all remiss about acknowledging great masterpieces of European music being performed in Zagreb in their day, either. The works of Claude Debussy, Pell?as et M?lisande; Ludwig van Beethoven, Missa solemnis Richard Wagner, Lohengrin were also followed through reviews, albeit within a curious Croatian-paradigm of musical history which included musical and dramatic theatre from Ljubljana, Zagreb, Split, Sarajevo, Skoplje, Osijek. In other words, they seem to have been aware of the cultural differences without ignoring what from them were shared in common. Before the First World War, SLM classified Bulgarians together with Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, as the future "Yugoslav nation". When the reality of politics clouded their vision, the Magazine?s musical critics nevertheless pursued a troupe of Bulgarian performers to visit Belgrade, and thus added to their repertoire from works of Bulgarian composers. Among musical contributors to the journal were the eminently known "Yugoslavs", Dr Miloje Milojevic (1884 - 1946) and Dr Viktor Novak (1889 - 1977). From Croatia and Slovenia musicians Juro Tkalcic and Ciril Licar, Milojevic spoke about "our national artists" and praised musicians who, in their program, included compositions of "all Yugoslav nations". Dr Novak demanded that Belgrade become the musical capital of South Slavs, and invited Belgrade Opera to show on its scene the best Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian operas and ballets. From its onset, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was burdened by heavy political and economical problems. That would also lead to bitter dispute about Yugoslavian ideology. Nevertheless, SLM did not renounce the system of its objectives and values upon which it was built. But there is one particular section where the Magazine?s inconsistency can be noticed - when seen from a Yugoslav dimension of the journal - is the necrology column. Magazine did not publish even one obituary of Croatian musicians, and wrote fragmentary unclear and unconvincing criterion about Slovenians. However, it would be neither appropriate, nor real, to interpret incompleteness of the Magazine?s musical necrological texts in purely ideological light. Namely an insufficient number of musical contributors from all Yugoslav provinces - with the exception of Serbia - was probably the main reason for these omissions. After all, SLM was a literary journal and, as such, entertained numerous literary problems and questions. At some point, the editors must have agreed that the information in the field of musical posthumous articles was insufficient. The obvious absence of said would indicate that they did.

The Consolation of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

The Consolation of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

Choral Singing, Performance Perception, and Immune System Changes in Salivary Immunoglobulin A and Cortisol

In a naturalistic pre-post design, samples of saliva were collected from the members of a professional chorale during an early rehearsal (n = 31), a late rehearsal (n = 34) and a public performance (n = 32) of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. As measures of immune system response, mean levels of secretory immunoglobulin A increased significantly, as a proportion of whole protein, 150% during rehearsals and 240% during the performance. Cortisol concentrations decreased significantly an average of 30% during rehearsals and increased 37% during performance. As measured through performance perception rating scales, a group of emotions and other experiential states that singers associated with professional singing were highly predictive of changes in level of secretory immunoglobulin A during the performance condition, but the results for the rehearsal conditions were not significant. The best multiple regression model for performance level of immunoglobulin A (p < .0015) included seven emotional, cognitive, and evaluative variables generally associated with choral singing, including levels of mood before and during singing, stress, relaxation, feeling "high," detachment/engagement, and specific satisfaction with the immediate performance.

The "Galitzin" Quartets of Beethoven: Opp. 127, 132, 130

This is an analysis of the first three of Beethoven's late quartets, Opera 127, 132 and 130, commissioned by Prince Nikolai Galitzin. All five late quartets, usually considered as a group, were written in the same period as the Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. Chua believes that, of the five quartets, the three studies here trace a process of disintegration, whereas the last two, Opera 131 and 135, reintegrate the language that Beethoven himself had destabilized. Through analyses that unearth peculiar features characteristic of the surface and of the deeper structures of the music, Chua interprets the Galitzin quartets as radical critiques of both music and society, a view first proposed by Theodore Adorno. From this perspective, the quartets necessarily undo the act of analysis as well, forcing the analytical traditions associated with Schenker and Schoenberg to break up into an eclectic mixture of techniques. Analysis itself thus becomes problematic and has to move in a dialectical and paradoxical fashion in order to trace Beethoven's logic of disintegration. The result is a new way of reading these works that not only reflects the preoccupations of the German Romantics of that time and the poststructuralists of today, but also opens a discussion of cultural, political and philosophical issues.

The Sight of Sound: Music, Representation, and the History of the Body

Preface and Acknowledgments Translator's Note Abbreviations Introduction (by Richard Leppert) 1. Locating Music: Society, Modernity, and the New Commentary (by Richard Leppert) Music, Language, and Composition (1956) Why Is the New Art So Hard to Understand?* (1931) On the Contemporary Relationship of Philosophy and Music* (1953) On the Problem of Musical Analysis (1969) The Aging of the New Music (1955) The Dialectical Composer* (1934) 2. Culture, Technology, and Listening Commentary (by Richard Leppert) The Radio Symphony (1941) The Curves of the Needle (1927/1965) The Form of the Phonograph Record (1934) Opera and the Long-Playing Record (1969) On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening (1938) Little Heresy* (1965) 3. Music and Mass Culture Commentary (by Richard Leppert) What National Socialism Has Done to the Arts (1945) On the Social Situation in Music (1932) On Popular Music [With the assistance of George Simpson] (1941) On Jazz (1936) Farewell to Jazz* (1933) Kitsch* (c. 1932) Music in the Background* (c. 1934) 4. Composition, Composers, and Works Commentary (by Richard Leppert) Late Style in Beethoven (1937) Alienated Masterpiece: The Missa Solemnis (1959) Wagner's Relevance for Today (1963) Mahler Today* (1930) Marginala on Mahler* (1936) The Opera Wozzeck* (1929) Toward an Understanding of Schoenberg* (1955/1967) Difficulties* (1964, 1966) Bibliography Index An asterisk (*) following a title indicates that the essay is here translated into English for the first time.

Carnegie Hall Presents Robert Shaw: Preparing a Masterpiece, Vol. 2: A Choral Workshop on Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

Carnegie Hall Presents Robert Shaw: Preparing a Masterpiece, Vol. 2: A Choral Workshop on Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

The Sight of Sound: Music Representation and the History of the Body

Preface and Acknowledgments Translator's Note Abbreviations Introduction (by Richard Leppert) 1. Locating Music: Society, Modernity, and the New Commentary (by Richard Leppert) Music, Language, and Composition (1956) Why Is the New Art So Hard to Understand?* (1931) On the Contemporary Relationship of Philosophy and Music* (1953) On the Problem of Musical Analysis (1969) The Aging of the New Music (1955) The Dialectical Composer* (1934) 2. Culture, Technology, and Listening Commentary (by Richard Leppert) The Radio Symphony (1941) The Curves of the Needle (1927/1965) The Form of the Phonograph Record (1934) Opera and the Long-Playing Record (1969) On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening (1938) Little Heresy* (1965) 3. Music and Mass Culture Commentary (by Richard Leppert) What National Socialism Has Done to the Arts (1945) On the Social Situation in Music (1932) On Popular Music [With the assistance of George Simpson] (1941) On Jazz (1936) Farewell to Jazz* (1933) Kitsch* (c. 1932) Music in the Background* (c. 1934) 4. Composition, Composers, and Works Commentary (by Richard Leppert) Late Style in Beethoven (1937) Alienated Masterpiece: The Missa Solemnis (1959) Wagner's Relevance for Today (1963) Mahler Today* (1930) Marginala on Mahler* (1936) The Opera Wozzeck* (1929) Toward an Understanding of Schoenberg* (1955/1967) Difficulties* (1964, 1966) Bibliography Index An asterisk (*) following a title indicates that the essay is here translated into English for the first time.

Rossini: Petite Messe Solennelle

The Petite messe solennelle was motivated Rossini to compose a fullfor its execution: that is, eight written in 1863, more than scale mass so late in life. One for the chorus, four for the solos, thirty years after the composer biographer has suggested that he was a total of twelve Cherubim, had abruptly quit the operatic scene inspired by hearing a performance of Dear God, forgive me the and only five years before his death. It Liszt's Missa solemnis, written for the following comparison: Twelve is one of a group of over one hundred cathedral at Gran.2 Although this also are the Apostles in the and fifty pieces which Rossini work was not actually performed in celebrated jaw-stroke [coup-de produced during the last thirteen years Paris until 1866, three years after the mâchoire] painted in Fresco by of his life. Most of these compositions composition of the Petite messe, it is Leonardo, called The Last are vocal and instrumental chamber possible that Rossini borrowed a score Supper, who would believe it! works which were performed by and Among thy Disciples are some for the intimate group of friends who ki a ' A been a genre of great importance to performance of the mass in her ± S° be TMou blessed and Rossini. The Petite messe was private chapel.4 &ran ara is® preceded only by three youthful More compelling evidence of G. Rossini. Passy, 1863. attempts at mass-setting1 and by the Rossini's motivation is found on the

Beethoven's Compositional Process

Fresh perspectives on the symphonies and piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven are offered in the inaugural volume of North American Beethoven Studies . To be published under the joint auspices of the University of Nebraska Press and the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, the volumes in the new series will focus on the life and work, milieu and influence of the great composer. The first volume, edited by the noted music scholar and pianist William Kinderman, brings together recent studies by leading scholars on Beethoven's major orchestral, including the first two piano concertos, the Egmont overture, the Missa Solemnis, and several of the symphonies, especially the Third, Fifth, and Ninth. They devote special attention to Beethoven's creative process by analyzing, in some instances closely for the first time, his numerous surviving musical sketchbooks and loose sketch-leaves. The issues dealt with include Beethoven's reinterpretation of the composition models of Haydn and Mozart, his working methods in composition, the structural expansion of his symphonic forms, the design of variation movements in his symphonies, and Beethoven's musical symbolism. Four introductory essays probe the relation between Beethoven's sketches and the analysis of his finished works; it is a fascinating and controversial undertaking. The first volume of North American Beethoven Studies illuminates critical issues and challenges traditional interpretations of some of Beethoven's most celebrated works while avoiding the narrow specialization of some recent scholarship. Future volumes will focus on performance practices, composition, and recording history.

A 20th–Century Approach to Heterophony: Mark Kopytman'S ‘Cantus II’

Plato discussed the term ‘heterophony’ in his Laws, Part VII, The technique was widely in use by the Notre Dame school of composers in 12th-century Paris. Much of the indigenous music of the Near East and Africa is rich with it. Indeed, there is an important example in the Credo of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. The Israeli composer Mark Kopytman has in recent years transformed this ancient term into a vital 20th-century technique, and made it the language of some of his important compositions. One of these, Cantus II for violin, viola, and cello (1980), will be performed at the ISCM World Music Days during March in Budapest.

Zarlino's Theories of Text Underlay as Illustrated in His Motet Book of 1549

During the winter of 1819 Beethoven was deeply immersed in the composition of his Missa solemnis. As the composition progressed and Beethoven began sketching the modal Incarnatus, he apparently called on his friends to help him search out a copy of the book he believed would provide authoritative information on modes and stile antico coun? terpoint, Gioseffo Zarlino's Istitutioni harmoniche of 1558.1 Such has been Zarlino's stature through the centuries that his name has become almost synonymous with musical truth for the sixteenth century. We, like Bee? thoven, turn first to Zarlino when questions of Renaissance music the? ory are raised. The theoretical renown that led even Beethoven to Zarlino has overshadowed the fact that the sixteenth-century theorist was also a com? poser. While critical evaluation of Zarlino's works awaits their availability in modern edition they can serve meanwhile as a source for examples of the theories and precepts he set forth in his treatises. The following study will investigate one group of Zarlino's works?the fivevoice motets of 1549?from that standpoint, particularly as they illustrate, amplify, and clarify his modal theories and his rules for text underlay. It will also demonstrate the usefulness of certain bibliographical evidence in ascertaining how closely the composer may have supervised the publication of the edition. Zarlino spent almost his entire life in Venice and its environs. He was born in Chioggia, the fishing port at the southern entrance to the Vene? tian lagoon. There he began his musical career as a singer and organist at the cathedral. In 1541 he took up residence in Venice itself, and came under the spell of Adrian Willaert, the Flemish composer whose teaching and influence molded the work of a whole generation of com-

Beethoven's Symbol for the Deity in the "Missa solemnis" and the Ninth Symphony

Beethoven's Symbol for the Deity in the "Missa solemnis" and the Ninth Symphony

The Evolution and Structure of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations

Research Article| July 01 1982 The Evolution and Structure of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations William Kinderman William Kinderman Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (1982) 35 (2): 306–328. https://doi.org/10.2307/831148 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation William Kinderman; The Evolution and Structure of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 July 1982; 35 (2): 306–328. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/831148 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1982 The American Musicological Society, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Barraqué and the Serial Idea

It was through Schubert and Beethoven that Jean Barraqué came to his vocation as a composer. He himself indicated 1940 as the date when his ‘conversion’ began; he was twelve years old, and his practical experience of playing the piano and the violin as well as daily singing classes at school had done nothing to deflect him from his childhood ambition to enter the priesthood. Then one of his teachers played him records of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, and he was immediately fired with an obsessive enthusiasm for music. He refers to three other works which he went on to discover for himself: the Arpeggione Sonata, the Pastoral Symphony and the Missa Solemnis. He had at that time a burning desire to emulate the great masters, and he would copy out major orchestral scores and compose his own imitations of them. At fifteen, he says, his idea of a composer was of someone who wrote the Missa Solemnis. The work was to remain his constant touchstone, just as Schubert was always, for him, ‘that purest of musicians’. No doubt, too, there was something about the nature of the particular works to which he was first drawn that determined the scale on which he later customarily worked. He could not conceivably have composed Bagatelles or Moments Musicaux; these would have seemed to him too self-contained, too ‘finished’. In fact, he was deeply committed to what he called ‘l'inachèvement sans cesse’; if creative thought was a continuum, then no creative act could properly be regarded as ‘finished’.

Alienated Masterpiece: The Missa Solemnis (1959)

Abstract Neutralization of culture—the words have the ring of a philosophical concept. They posit as a more or less general reflection that intellectual constructs have forfeited their intrinsic meanings because they have lost any possible relation to social praxis and have become that which aesthetics retrospectively claims they are—objects of pure observation, of mere contemplation. As such they ultimately lose even their own aesthetic import; their aesthetic truth content disappears along with their tension vis-à-vis reality. They become cultural goods, exhibited in a secular pantheon in which contradictions, works which would tend to destroy each other, find a deceptively peaceful realm of co-existence, e.g., Kant and Nietzsche, Bismarck and Marx, Clemens Brentano and Büchner.

Concerning the Sciences, the Arts: And the Humanities

expressionist painting. Similarly, the syntax governing a motet by Machaut (1300-1377) is not the same as that controlling a quartet by Mozart-or the structure of South Indian music. It is beyond the scope of this essay to inquire why stylistic principles of 166 Leonard B. Meyer Sciences, Arts, and Humanities the arts have changed as they have. What is important here is that they have-while principles of nature have not. To prevent misunderstanding, it should be noted that style changes in the arts are not, save metaphorically, analogous to biological evolution, or even to the development of scientific theories. In biological evolution it is evidently the case that however much organisms change-however complex they become-their organization remains compatible with certain first principles which are invariant. But this is not so-or at least has not been shown to be so-in the arts. Different styles of, say, music seem to be founded upon quite different and incompatible syntactic principles: compare, for example, the music of Bach with that of Boulez. With regard to a possible analogy between stylistic change and the development of scientific theory, it appears (as we will consider shortly) that, because they are propositional and verifiable, scientific theories evolve in the sense that, generally speaking, they move toward a more accurate explanation of the natural world. Consequently, earlier theories in a given discipline are replaced or qualified by later ones. Once again, this is scarcely true of the arts. Rembrandt's representation of the Crucifixion does not supersede or invalidate one by Perugino, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis does not replace Bach's B-minor Mass, and a comedy by Shaw does not make those by Sheridan or Molibre obsolete. I used Hamlet as an example a bit earlier because, as he so often did, Shakespeare borrowed his plot from an existing source. Now if We are not really interested in the exact word sequence, but are concerned with the content (Stent 1972, p. 89), then it should not be important whether we read Shakespeare's play, the earlier one from which his plot was borrowed, or the tale which was the basis for the earlier play. Clearly, however, this is not the case. And Stent is certainly aware that there is a problem. But his discussion and solution of it seem to me fundamentally mistaken and misleading. Consequently, disputing individual points seriatim would be fruitless. Instead, I shall cut through his Gordian argument with a sharp, but simple, distinction: namely, there is a profound and basic difference between scientific theories, which are propositional, and works of art, which are presentational. Scientific theories consist of propositional statements or hypotheses expressing and explaining recurring and orderly relationships found in the world of natural events, social behavior, and human action. They are general in that they refer to classes or types; they are abstract in that they account for only some attributes of the natural world. The law of gravity, for instance, expresses the relationship between the mass of, and distance between, objects. But it asserts nothing about their shape, color, and texture, or their size and material-except as these may affect their

Revisions in the Autograph of the Missa Solemnis Kyrie

Research Article| October 01 1970 Revisions in the Autograph of the Missa Solemnis Kyrie Joel Lester Joel Lester Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (1970) 23 (3): 420–438. https://doi.org/10.2307/830614 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Joel Lester; Revisions in the Autograph of the Missa Solemnis Kyrie. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 October 1970; 23 (3): 420–438. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/830614 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1970 The American Musicological Society Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Revisions in the Autograph of the "Missa Solemnis Kyrie"

Revisions in the Autograph of the "Missa Solemnis Kyrie"

Beethoven as a Choral Composer

Here are the complaints about Beethoven as a choral composer which are so well known, particularly by those of us who have sung in performances of these two giant works. And yet may we thank God for Beethoven's obstinacy! In this century we have slowly come of age: lay audiences accept and cherish these two works, and responsible musicians consider the adequate preparation of the music, so clearly understood by Berlioz over a hundred years ago, as a sacred duty. Sopranos in particular, on whom Beethoven makes by far the greatest demands, have learned a combination of breath control and neutralized vocal sounds to sustain, for example, successive high B flats, so that passages like ‘sedes ad dexteram’ or ‘et vitam venturi’ in the Missa Solemnis are sung without that lessening of ‘volume and energy’ lamented by Berlioz.