Mass

Five ordinary texts set as one cycle, the West's first great cyclic form.

Related

MedievalRenaissanceMassOrgan

The Mass sets the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei as one cycle. It is the centre of the liturgy and the West's earliest large cyclic form.

Origins

In the Middle Ages the Mass was sung in sections by different singers. In the fourteenth century Machaut unified the five ordinary texts in his Messe de Nostre Dame, one composer writing the whole cycle. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries composers built Masses on a secular tune or chant, such as L'homme armé. The Baroque expanded it to choir, soloists and orchestra; the Classical and Romantic eras moved it into the concert hall.

Listening features

The emotional order of the five sections is stable: the Kyrie pleads, the Gloria rejoices, the Credo is long and solemn, the Sanctus bursts out, the Agnus Dei settles. Polyphonic passages imitate; chordal ones keep the words clear. A Mass often shares one mode or cantus firmus, so the whole cycle sounds unified. A Requiem keeps the Kyrie but adds the Dies irae and drops the Gloria and Credo.

Composers and works

Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame is the earliest complete cycle. Josquin, Palestrina and Byrd brought polyphonic Masses to their height. Bach's Mass in B minor and Beethoven's Missa solemnis pushed the genre to concert scale.

Lineage

It grows from chant liturgy and branches into Requiem, oratorio and cantata; its choral writing feeds opera and symphony.

Misconceptions

Mass is not a name for any sacred music. It need not set all five sections: a missa brevis uses only some texts. A Requiem is a kind of Mass, not a separate genre. The Mass is not necessarily unaccompanied; organ and orchestra can join.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Mass" — terms and dating checked, not quoted
• Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 1 — context checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.