Missa Brevis

A Missa Brevis (Brief Mass) for Choir and Organ. It uses the traditional Catholic Mass liturgy but eliminates the Credo movement.Movements:I. KyrieII. GloriaIII. SanctusIV. Agnus DeiPlease comment and enjoy.

Missa Brevis

I'm missing a lot of the Kyrie score...

Your sopranos will kill you, if they don't die first from so many high G# and A.

The Gloria movement is fantastically reminiscent of Stravinsky's Mass.

For a Missa Brevis, this is very not-Brevis.

I'm also missing a lot of the Benedictus in the score.

FIX YOUR SCORE.

You needn't slur the dipthong on "dei" in the Agnus Dei. Performance practice dictates that dipthongs are handled in the manner of whichever language-overlay is being practiced on the Latin. Therefore, in Italian, each vowel is given equal weight, whereas in English, the "ee" follows just at the cutoff. Most Latin in contemporary church music is sung with Italian overlay.

Hi Justin.

I agree with Chirstopher that it is quite long for a Brevis.

The Kyrie in particular maybe too long.

I am a bit surprised on the feel of each movement. The Kyrie sounds too major. It was lovely peaceful, with some chromatically downward movement (I like these the most because that is what I expect in a Kyrie). It's like you were theologically saying there is no need to beg by God(?)

I think your Gloria gets the right emotion tone, the jubilant fast paced. I love some of the progressions here. Same for the Hosanna

But then the Sanctus feels sometimes like a lament. I know this is all my interpretation. BTW the 4' Cl in the pedal is a nice touch. It is possible the Clairon is louder than the Oboe, and make sure when the it leaves. I think in ms 5?

The accents in ms 26 (gloria) in the organ have little to no effect.

Some range issues for the organ. pg 17 ms 27 and pg 26 Ms 115/6. I would not go that high. Some organs go to f. But when you do, make sure there are no high stops open, like 2' or mixtures. Because the sounds gets to shrill and really unpleasant, and bad mixing with the other voices. When you write ff most organist would add kinds of 4' 2' and mixtures, so please be clear ;)

About these registrations. I think its good practice to give them at the start of each movement. They were missing at the start of the Gloria.

Well. Nice piece! The harmonies were a bit on the classical side, but I think that increases the changes of getting preformed in a service (if they are willing to stay for 21 more minutes :P )

I really liked this Justin. I do agree with both what jr and Chris said. Aside from those points, I would've loved to have seen more counterpoint and contrast in the Kyrie - but thats subjective. Good work overall!

Lol. The score was messed up. I uploaded the older version by mistake. Its fixed now.

Justin, I was missing the same parts of the score that Chris mentioned, but I see you've fixed that. Might want to look the slur collisions and stuff going on.

Musically this is fantastic, without question. I do think there are some rough edges you could buff out, and I continue to be of the opinion that if you're going to write in an idiom as conservative as this, you should avoid illegal parallel motion...it just makes you look careless.

I have to agree with the previous posters that this is too long and involved to be a Missa Brevis in the standard meaning of the term, but my question would be: did you intend the "brevis" designation to mean short in duration, or shortened as in truncated, as this piece is, lacking a Credo? I'd like to say more about this, but I'll save it until I know what your intentions were.

The syllabification of your text underlay needs some correction. For example, in the Kyrie you have divided eleison into el-ei-son, when it should be e-lei-son. This may not seem like a big deal, but it really is. In the Gloria: ...hom-in-i-bus bo-na-e vol-un-ta-tis should be ho-mi-ni-bus bo-nae vo-lun-ta-tis (note that bonae has two syllables, not three...in Church Latin, ae is prounounced like the a in ache, though in Classical Latin the ae is a diphthong). See if you can find a syllabified Mass text online somewhere, and familiarise yourself with Church Latin pronunciation; liturgical music is never sung with Classical Latin pronunciation.

I love all the counterpoint, particularly the spine-tingling chromatic imitation in the Christe eleison. I was disappointed in spots like the passage starting at measure 52 in the Kyrie, though: here you get going on this marvelous fugue, get three voices into it, and then when the soprano enters you bail out before you've even completed an exposition! It's almost like you had momentary ADD and couldn't wait to get on to something else, when IMHO at least finishing the exposition of the fugue would have been much more effective than what you ended up with.

That's enough for now. I am curious as to what you actually meant by Missa Brevis, though.

Great work, as always!

Thanks for the comments guys!

J. Lee, yeah there's issues. The Missa Brevis is more based on the text than the actual length. However, compared to some masses, it is short, only 20 minutes, compared to, say, the Mass in B minor or Missa Solemnis which both are over an hour. I think I will cut down the Kyrie regardless; its just too much. Also, thanks for the help with the Latin. I think I screwed up using only classical Latin syllabification and not Liturgical. I'll have to look that up.