Frank Martin - Mass for Double Choir

• Report rights infringement
• published: 03 Oct 2015
• views: 3972

- Composer: Frank Martin (15 September 1890 -- 21 November 1974) - Performers: RIAS-Kammerchor - Conductor: Daniel Reuss - Year of recording: 2003 Mass for unaccompanied double choir, written between 1922-1926. 00:00 - I. Kyrie 05:55 - II. Gloria 11:49 - III. Credo 17:54 - IV. Sanctus 22:23 - V. Angus Dei It is hard to believe that this work would sit in Martin's drawer for nearly forty years, until only after heavy persuasion from Franz Brunnert, director of the Bugenhagen Kantorei of Hamburg, he released it for publication and performance in 1963. A work of such searing beauty and luminescence should surely have not sat in a drawer gathering dust, whilst the world was crying out for more sacred masterpieces to rival Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and Szymanowski's Stabat Mater. Why did he choose to exile his only unaccompanied choral work for so long? The answer one suspects lies in the composer's strong Christian faith, a faith which governed his life, both personal and artistic. Born into a Swiss Calvinist family (his father was a minister) in 1890 his work would be hugely indebted to his faith, and somewhat like Messiaen, his work would never stray too far from Christian themes and issues. To write a work which expresses the very essence of his faith and then have it performed and open for public dissemination appeared to be a step too far for the intensely devoted Martin. As he wrote in the 1960s: "I did not want it to be performed...I consider it...as being a matter between God and myself. I felt then that an expression of religious feelings should remain secret and removed from public opinion." Given that Frank Martin's most important formative musical experience was hearing the St. Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach at the age of ten, it makes sense that he would eventually try his hand at writing for the double choir Bach used in that work. Yet Martin's Mass for double choir looks even further back for musical inspiration, to Renaissance polyphony and to plainsong church modes. The work itself is lovely, simple, and devotional. Martin apparently wrote it in 1922 and revised it in 1926, with (as mentioned before) no thought of public performance; it had its premiere in 1961. - The opening moments of the Kyrie set the mood for the rest of the piece: there is a plainsong-like line in the altos, soon joined imitatively by the remainder of one choir. When the full choir takes up the line, there is a startling sense of space suddenly explored. High, harsh outbursts on the word "Kyrie" also set the pattern of tension occurring in the upper registers and relaxing in the lower. - Like the Kyrie, the Gloria takes full advantage of the antiphonal and polyphonic possibilities offered by the use of two choirs. Phrases rise from quiet and low to strong and high, never more memorably than in the opening "Gloria in excelsis." The closing "In gloria dei Patris" goes against the grain by featuring sweet high notes and a lovely melisma in the sopranos. - The Credo is primarily homophonic, using entrances in sequence for dramatic effect -- as in the layered, dissonant outbursts on "Crucifixus" or the subsequent solemn, painfully measured tones of "passus, et sepultus est." - Both the Sanctus and Benedictus begin with short motives in the lower voices which become the bases of their respective settings; the "Osanna in excelsis" in the Sanctus winds voices in and out in compound meter, providing a modest yet powerful vision of eternity, while the second "Osanna" is simpler but no less effective. - The Agnus Dei uses a few repeated chords in the second choir as the basis for melody in the first, until just before the end when both choirs join together and homophonically pronounce the "dona nobis pacem" like a blessing, ending on a G major chord. However hard it is to imagine that Martin's Mass for double choir went unperformed for so long, luckily it has now been recognized as one of his most beautiful and pure compositions.