Missa brevis in G major | |
Type: | Mass by W. A. Mozart |
Key: | G major |
Catalogue: | K. 49/47d |
Movements: | 6 |
Vocal: | choir and soloists |
Mozart's Mass in G major, K. 49/47d), is his first full mass. It is a missa brevis scored for SATB soloists and choir, violin I and II, viola, and basso continuo.
Mozart wrote the Mass in G major at the age of 12. It was however neither his first setting of a part of the mass ordinary – two years earlier he had already composed a Kyrie (K. 33) —, nor was it his largest composition with a religious theme up to date: his sacred musical play Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots had been premiered in the previous year.
Composed in Vienna in the autumn of 1768,[1] this mass is Mozart's only missa brevis to feature a viola part.[2] It is not clear what occasion it was composed for, and it has been confused with the Waisenhausmesse, composed in the same year.[3]
Religious music at the time was increasingly influenced by opera and Baroque embellishments in instrumentation; Mozart's early masses, such as K. 49/47d, have been seen as a return to the more austere settings of the pre-Baroque era.[4]
The six movements of the mass follow the traditional Order of Mass:
Kyrie Adagio, G major,
"Kyrie eleison" Andante, G major,
Gloria Allegro, G major,
Credo Allegro, G major,
"Et incarnatus est" Poco adagio, C major,
"Et resurrexit" Allegro – Adagio – Allegro, G major,
"Et in Spiritum Sanctum" Andante, C major, ; bass solo
"Et in unam sanctam" Allegro – Adagio – Allegro – Adagio, G major, and
"Et vitam venturi" Allegro, G major,
Sanctus Andante, G major,
"Pleni sunt coeli et terra" Allegro, G major,
"Hosanna in excelsis" Allegro, G major,
Benedictus Andante, C major, ; soloist quartet
"Hosanna in excelsis" Allegro, G major,
Agnus Dei Adagio, E minor,
"Dona nobis pacem" Allegro, G major,
1988: Edith Mathis (soprano), Rosemarie Lang (contralto), Uwe Heilmann (tenor), Jan-Hendrik Rootering (bass) — Rundfunkchor Leipzig, Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Kegel — Philips Classics Records (later reissued in 1991 as part of The Complete Mozart Edition, Volume 19 "Missae and Requiem").
. Mozart: His Character, His Work. Alfred Einstein. 1945. 326. 978-0-19-500732-9. 27 March 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170327003155/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ep4PXMszMv4C&dq. live.