Cyclic mass
In
The period of composition of cyclic masses was from about 1430 until around 1600,[citation needed] although some composers, especially in conservative musical centers, wrote them after that date. Types of cyclic masses include the "motto" mass (or "head-motif" mass), cantus-firmus mass or tenor mass, soggetto cavato mass, paraphrase mass, parody mass, as well as masses based on combinations of these techniques.
History
Prior to complete settings of the Mass Ordinary by a single composer, which had become the norm by around the middle of the 15th century, composers often set pairs of movements. Gloria-Credo pairs, as well as Sanctus-Agnus Dei pairs, are found in many manuscripts of the early 15th century, by composers such as Johannes Ciconia, Arnold de Lantins and Zacara da Teramo. While it is possible that some of these composers wrote an entire setting of the mass, no complete cyclic setting by a single composer has survived. (The Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377), which dates to before 1365 is generally not considered to be a true cyclic mass, but is the earliest surviving complete mass setting by a single composer, although the existence of at least four earlier such pieces is known.) Some mass cycles from the period 1420–1435, especially from northern Italy, show that composers were working in the direction of a unified mass, but were solving the problem in a different way: often a separate tenor would be used for each movement of a mass that was otherwise unified stylistically.[1]
The true cyclic mass most likely originated in England, and the first composers known to have organized a mass by using the same cantus firmus in each movement were
The earliest consistently-used method for organizing the movements of the mass was use of a
During the late 15th century, cantus firmus technique was by far the most frequent method used to unify cyclic masses. The cantus firmus, which at first was drawn from Gregorian chant, but later from other sources such as secular chansons, was usually set in longer notes in the tenor voice (the next-to-lowest).[6] The other voices could be used in many ways, ranging from freely composed polyphony to strict canon, but the texture was predominantly polyphonic but non-imitative. In some cases the cantus firmus appeared also in voices other than then tenor, with increasing freedom as the century reached its close. Secular chansons became the favored source for cantus firmi by the time of Ockeghem and his generation (the last third of the 15th century), and composers began writing their own; for example Ockeghem's Missa au travail suis is based on his own chanson of that name.
By the beginning of the 16th century, the cantus firmus technique was no longer the preferred method for composition of masses, except in some areas distant from Rome and the Low Countries (Spanish composers, in particular, used the method into the 16th century). Some other methods of organizing cyclic masses include paraphrase and parody.
In paraphrase technique, a source tune, which could be either sacred or secular, is elaborated, usually by ornamentation but occasionally by compression. Usually in paraphrase masses the tune appears in any voice. Josquin des Prez' Missa Pange lingua (c. 1520) is a famous example; Palestrina also used the method extensively, second only to parody technique.
The
See also
- Cyclic form
- Cantus firmus mass
Notes
References
- J. Peter Burkholder: "Borrowing"; Hans Schoop/J. Michael Allsen: "Arnold de Lantins"; Lewis Lockwood, "Mass"; Andrew Kirkman, "Caput"; Leeman Perkins, "Johannes Ockeghem". Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed November 12, 2006), (subscription access) Archived 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 0-393-09530-4
- Harold Gleason and Warren Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana. Frangipani Press, 1986. ISBN 0-89917-034-X
- ISBN 1-56159-174-2
- The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Randel. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-674-61525-5
- Robert Scherr, ed., The Josquin Companion. Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-816335-5
- Anne Walters Robertson, "The Savior, the Woman, and the Head of the Dragon in the Caput Masses and Motet". Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 59 No. 3., pp. 537-630. Fall 2006. ISSN 0003-0139