The "Great" Mass in C Minor has long been a favorite of mine. Written between 1782 and 1783, Mozart's most ambitious mass setting features some of the most vivacious melodies and vocal acrobatics from the master from Salzburg, but the piece was left incomplete.
What exists of the work today is as follows:
The Kyrie and Gloria are complete.
The Credo has two extant movements - Credo in unum Deum and Et Incarnatus Est. These movements are drafted with complete vocal parts and bass, but most of the orchestral accompaniment is fragmentary or altogether missing.
The Offertory features fragmentary scores of the Sanctus, Hosanna, and Benedictus. As with the Credo, the vocal parts are complete and some instrumental parts are missing, at least in Mozart's hand, although the double choir for the Hosanna fugue has been lost.
As for the Agnus Dei, there is no trace of that, nor a Dona Nobis Pacem.
Although it is quite common to hear the piece performed in its 'authentic' fragmentary state, there have been attempts made at completing the work. In the early 1900s, musicologist G.A. Schmitt published a reconstruction that drew upon the "Missa Longa" (K. 262), as well as Kyrie fragments K. 322 and K. 323, to complete the Credo, reconstructed the Hosanna's double choir, and recast the Kyrie as the Agnus Dei. More recently, Dr. Robert Levin's 2004 reconstruction is even more ambitious. After painstaking analysis of dozens of Mozart fragments contemporary to the C Minor Mass, as well as borrowing from the cantata "Davidde Penitente" (K. 469), which was mostly composed from music originally written for the C Minor Mass, Levin completes the Credo with his own settings of "Crucifixus," "Et Resurrexit," "Et Unam Sanctam," and "Et Vitam Venturi," borrowing from Davidde Penitente for "Et in Spiritum Sanctum." Rounding off the work, Levin, like Schmitt, reconstructs the double choir in the Offertory and fills out missing instrumentation and returns to Davidde Penitente for the "Agnus Dei," recasting the aria "Tra l'Oscure Ombre Funeste." Unlike Schmitt, however, Levin's finale does not recast the Kyrie, rather, he finishes with a 4-voice semi-fugal and highly contrapuntal flourish for "Dona Nobis Pacem," again based on contemporary Mozartean material.
Sorry to be so lengthy, but what I've just detailed above is why this piece has intrigued me for so long - it is, by any measure, brilliant. However, Mozart leaves it to us unfinished. I have a penchant for unanswerable questions, and, in terms of music, I feel that this may be one of the greatest such question ever. What are your thoughts about K. 427? Which versions do you find most convincing? Have you even pieced together your own version of how you think it should be performed? I hope we can have some scintillating discussion about this one!
What exists of the work today is as follows:
The Kyrie and Gloria are complete.
The Credo has two extant movements - Credo in unum Deum and Et Incarnatus Est. These movements are drafted with complete vocal parts and bass, but most of the orchestral accompaniment is fragmentary or altogether missing.
The Offertory features fragmentary scores of the Sanctus, Hosanna, and Benedictus. As with the Credo, the vocal parts are complete and some instrumental parts are missing, at least in Mozart's hand, although the double choir for the Hosanna fugue has been lost.
As for the Agnus Dei, there is no trace of that, nor a Dona Nobis Pacem.
Although it is quite common to hear the piece performed in its 'authentic' fragmentary state, there have been attempts made at completing the work. In the early 1900s, musicologist G.A. Schmitt published a reconstruction that drew upon the "Missa Longa" (K. 262), as well as Kyrie fragments K. 322 and K. 323, to complete the Credo, reconstructed the Hosanna's double choir, and recast the Kyrie as the Agnus Dei. More recently, Dr. Robert Levin's 2004 reconstruction is even more ambitious. After painstaking analysis of dozens of Mozart fragments contemporary to the C Minor Mass, as well as borrowing from the cantata "Davidde Penitente" (K. 469), which was mostly composed from music originally written for the C Minor Mass, Levin completes the Credo with his own settings of "Crucifixus," "Et Resurrexit," "Et Unam Sanctam," and "Et Vitam Venturi," borrowing from Davidde Penitente for "Et in Spiritum Sanctum." Rounding off the work, Levin, like Schmitt, reconstructs the double choir in the Offertory and fills out missing instrumentation and returns to Davidde Penitente for the "Agnus Dei," recasting the aria "Tra l'Oscure Ombre Funeste." Unlike Schmitt, however, Levin's finale does not recast the Kyrie, rather, he finishes with a 4-voice semi-fugal and highly contrapuntal flourish for "Dona Nobis Pacem," again based on contemporary Mozartean material.
Sorry to be so lengthy, but what I've just detailed above is why this piece has intrigued me for so long - it is, by any measure, brilliant. However, Mozart leaves it to us unfinished. I have a penchant for unanswerable questions, and, in terms of music, I feel that this may be one of the greatest such question ever. What are your thoughts about K. 427? Which versions do you find most convincing? Have you even pieced together your own version of how you think it should be performed? I hope we can have some scintillating discussion about this one!
