Scan 96
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
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1their universally-acknowledged beauties, in securing for themselves a lasting home in the Church. That their use has been tolerated, rather than encouraged, in Rome itself is proved by the significant fact that not one single note of any one of them has ever once been heard within the walls of the Sistine Chapel. And the reason is obvious. They cast Ecclesiastical tradition to the winds; and, substituting for it the ever-varying sentiment of individual minds, present no firm basis for the elaboration of a definite Church style, which, like that of the 16th century, shall prove its excellence by its stability. Yet, in the midst of the diversity which naturally ensues from this want of a common ideal, it is instructive to notice one bond of union between the older masters and the new, so strongly marked that it cannot possibly be the result of an accidental coincidence. Their agreement in the general distribution of their movements is most remarkable. We still constantly find the Kyrie presented to us in three separate divisions. The Qui tollis and Et incarnatus est are constantly introduced in the form of solemn Adagios. The same Osanna is almost always made to serve, as in the Missa Papae Marcelli, as a conclusion both to the Sanctus and the Benedictus. And in this vitality of typical form we find a convincing proof—if one be necessary—that the broad aesthetic principles of Art are immutable and calculated to survive, through an indefinite period, the vicissitudes of technical treatment in widely differing Schools. [It is curious to note that the concluding remarks of the above article are in complete sympathy with the reform in church music which found expression in the famous 'motu proprio' of Pope Pius X. in 1903.]
3It will be convenient to classify certain recognised kinds of Masses in this place, thus:—
5MISSA BREVIS is a Mass of moderate length, intended rather for use on ordinary occasions, than on festivals of very great solemnity.
7The subjects of the Missa Brevis are almost always original; as in the charming example by Andrea Gabrieli, printed, on the authority of a valuable MS. copy, in the first volume of Proske's Musica Divina. This rule, however, is not universal. Palestrina's Missa Brevis—a work of unapproachable beauty, and perfectly complete in all its parts, notwithstanding the comparatively short time it occupies in performance—is founded upon Canti fermi derived from the melody of Audi filia, a Plain-song Tractus, which has also been very finely treated in a Mass of earlier date by Claude Goudimel.
9MISSA DE ANGELIS. The name generally given to a very beautiful Plain-song Mass, in Mode XIII., prescribed in the Ratisbon Gradual, for use 'In Festis Solemnibus,' and appended to the Mechlin Gradual, as a Missa ad libitum. Judging from the internal evidence afforded by the freedom of its phrasing, and the Mode in which it is written, the Missa de Angelis would seem to be by no means the oldest Mass of this class now in use [it has its roots back in the 15th century, though in its usual form it exhibits all the degradation of the 17th or 18th]; its antiquity is, however, great enough to have obliterated all trace of its history, and even of the origin of the name by which it is now generally designated, and under which it is perhaps more frequently sung than any other Mass of its kind, both in its original form, and in the English translation used at St. Alban's, Holborn, St. Mary's, Paddington, and other London churches in which Gregorian services are encouraged.
11The number of the older Masses to which allusion has been made is very small. The Ordinarium Missae in the Ratisbon Gradual, published under the authority of the Congregation of Rites, contains: the Missa in Tempore Paschali in Modes VII. and VIII.; a very fine Missa in Duplicibus, beginning in Mode I., and another in Mode VIII.; a Missa Beatae Mariae beginning in Mode I., and another in Mode VIII.; the Missa in Dominicis in Modes I. and II.; the Missae in Festis Semiduplicibus and In Festis Simplicibus, both beginning in Mode VIII.; the well-known Missa pro Defunctis, beginning in Mode I., and including the famous Dies irae in Modes I. and II.; and some smaller Masses sung in Advent and Lent, during Octaves and on Ferial Days. The Mechlin Gradual also gives another Missa ad libitum in Mode XIII., and yet another in Modes VII. and VIII.
13Some editions of the Paris Gradual add to these a spurious Missa Regia, professedly in Mode I., but really in the modern key of D minor, composed by Dumont, Maître de Chapelle to Louis XIV., in acknowledged imitation of the older unisonous Masses, but in utter ignorance of the principles upon which they are constructed, and without a trace of appreciation of their true style or sentiment. This Mass was once very popular in France, and much sung in the Paris churches; but since the revival of the taste for pure ecclesiastical music it has wisely been discarded in favour of the older Masses which it was intended to displace.
15MISSA SINE NOMINE. A Mass, composed upon original subjects, in place of a Plain-song Canto fermo. Examples will be found among the works of Josquin des Prés, Palestrina, and other composers of the 15th and 16th centuries.
17MISSA SUPER VOCES MUSICALES (Missa Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La). A Mass in which the six sounds of the Hexachord are used as a Canto fermo. [See HEXACHORD.] Splendid specimens of the style are extant, by Josquin des Prés, Palestrina, and Francesco Suriano. W. S. R.
19MASSART, JOSEPH LAMBERT, a famous violin teacher, professor at the Paris Con-
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