Great Mass in C minor, K. 427

Great Mass in C minor (German: Große Messe in c-Moll), K. 427/417a, is the common name of the last musical setting of the mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (not counting his Requiem Mass left unfinished at his death). He composed it in Vienna in 1782 and 1783, when he was no longer a church musician of the Salzburg Cathedral. The large-scale work, a missa solemnis, is scored for two soprano soloists, a tenor and a bass, double chorus and large orchestra. It remained unfinished, missing large portions of the Credo and the complete Agnus Dei.

Composition and first performance

The work was composed during 1782/83. In a letter to his father Leopold dated 4 January 1783, Mozart mentioned a vow he had made to write a mass when he would bring his then fiancée Constanze as his wife to Salzburg; Constanze then sang the "Et incarnatus est" at its premiere.

The first performance took place in Salzburg on 26 October 1783. Mozart had moved to Vienna in 1781, but was paying a visit to his home town in the company of Constanze, who had not yet met his father or his sister (Nannerl).

Mass in C minor

Mass in C minor may refer to:

C minor

C minor (abbreviated c or Cm) is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E♭, F, G, A♭, and B♭. The harmonic minor raises the B♭ to B♮. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with naturals and accidentals as necessary.

Its key signature consists of three flats. Its relative major is E-flat major, and its parallel major is C major.

Usage

In the Baroque period, music in C minor was usually written with a two-flat key signature, and some modern editions of that repertoire retain that convention.

Of the two piano concertos that Mozart wrote in a minor key, one of them (No. 24, K. 491) is in C minor.

C minor has been associated with heroic struggle since Beethoven's time. Beethoven wrote some of his most characteristic works in the key of C minor, including the Symphony No. 5 and no fewer than three piano sonatas. (See Beethoven and C minor.)

Brahms's first symphony and first string quartet were composed in C minor; these were both genres with which Beethoven was closely associated during Brahms's lifetime.

Lesser long-tongued bat

The lesser long-tongued bat (Choeroniscus minor), also called the lesser long-tailed bat, is a bat species from South America.

Description

Relatively small among bats, members of this species have a total length of 6 to 7 centimetres (2.4 to 2.8 in), a forearm around 3.5 centimetres (1.4 in) long, and weigh from 7 to 12 grams (0.25 to 0.42 oz); females are slightly larger than males. The tail is 6 to 9 millimetres (0.24 to 0.35 in) long, with the first half being embedded within the uropatagium, which is also partially supported by well developed calcars. The body is covered with thick hair that is dark brown to almost black in colour.

As the common name for the species suggests, the muzzle is slender and elongated, although not unusually so among glossophagine bats, and is tipped with a triangular nose-leaf. The ears are rounded, with curved folds along either edge, and a large tragus. The tongue is remarkably long, and can be extended even when the bat's jaws are closed, because of a wide gap between the front teeth, reaching up to 50% of the animal's entire body length. The tip of the tongue bears a small patch of bristles, which presumably helps the bat lap up nectar. The teeth are somewhat variable in form, but only the canines are prominent, with all the remaining teeth being small and delicate.

C-sharp minor

C-sharp minor or C♯ minor is a minor scale based on C♯, with the pitches C♯, D♯, E, F♯, G♯, A, and B. For the C-sharp harmonic minor, the B is raised to B♯ (which is equivalent to C). Its key signature consists of four sharps.

Its relative major is E major, and its parallel major is C-sharp major, usually replaced by D-flat major.

Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary.

Classical music in this key

There are only two known symphonies in the 18th century written in this key. One of them is by Joseph Martin Kraus, but he appears to have found the key difficult since he later rewrote it in C minor. Even in the following two centuries, C-sharp minor symphonies remained rare. Two notable examples are the first movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 5) and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 7.

This key occurs more often in piano literature from the 18th century onwards. Domenico Scarlatti wrote just two keyboard sonatas in C-sharp minor, K. 246 and K. 247. But after Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 (Moonlight Sonata), the key became more frequent in the piano repertoire. Beethoven himself used this key again in the outer movements of his String Quartet No. 14 (Op. 131, 1826). Even so, Johannes Brahms still felt the need to rewrite his C-sharp minor Piano Quartet in C minor, which was published as Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60.