"My Mass was partly provoked by some Masses of Mozart that I found at a secondhand store in Los Angeles in 1942 or 1943. As I played through these rococo-operatic sweets-of-sin, I knew I had to write a Mass of my own, but a real one."And although he was a Russian Orthodox Christian, he had to write a Catholic Mass if he wanted to have orchestral accompaniment, so:
— Igor Stravinsky to Robert Craft[1]
I wanted my Mass to be used liturgically, an outright impossibility as far as the Russian Church was concerned, as Orthodox tradition proscribes musical instruments in its services- and as I can endure unaccompanied singing in only the most harmonically primitive music.[4]
I don't appreciate his comments about Mozart's Masses ("these rococo-operatic sweets-of-sin"!), but I appreciated his setting of the Mass, especially the Credo.
One composes a march to facilitate marching men, so with my Credo I hope to provide an aid to the text. The Credo is the longest movement. There is much to believe.[4]
You may find several performances on YouTube and on CD (perhaps available used?)
Stravinsky's comment about Mozart's "rococo-operatic" Masses reminded me of Kenneth Clark's description in Civilisation of how listening to the G minor Quintet changed his mind about that characterization of him:
And yet to pronounce the name of Mozart in the Amahenburg is dangerous . It gives colour -- very pretty colour -- to the notion that Mozart was merely a Rococo composer. Fifty years ago this was what most people thought about him, and the notion was supported by horrible little plaster busts which made him look the perfect eighteenth-century dummy. I bought one of these busts when I was at school, but when I first heard the G minor Quintet I realised that it couldn't have been written by the smooth, white character on my mantelpiece and threw the bust into the wastepaper basket. I afterwards discovered the Lange portrait [169] which, although no masterpiece, does convey the single-mindedness of genius. Of course a lot of Mozart's music is in the current eighteenth-century style. He was so much at home in this golden age of music, and so completely the master of its forms, that he didn't feel it necessary to destroy them. Indeed he loved the clarity and the precision that had been brought to perfection in the music of his time. I like the story of Mozart sitting at table absentmindedly folding and refolding his napkin into more and more elaborate patterns, as fresh musical ideas passed through his mind. But this formal perfection was used to express two characteristics which were very far from the Rococo style. One of them was that peculiar kind of melancholy, a melancholy amounting almost to panic, which so often haunts the isolation of genius. Mozart felt it quite young. The other characteristic was almost the opposite: a passionate interest in human beings, and in the drama of human relationships. How often in Mozart's orchestral pieces - concertos or quartets - we find our- selves participating in a drama or dialogue; and of course this feeling reaches its natural conclusion in opera.
And I enjoy listening to lots of Mozart's music in general, as often demonstrated on this blog.
Finally, I'm not sure how settings of the Catholic Mass--especially by a composer like Mozart--could ever be considered "sweets-of-sin"!
Nevertheless, I recommend you listen to Stravinsky's Catholic Mass!
Image Credit (Public Domain) Photoportrait of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Taken by George Grantham Bain's news picture agency.
Image Credit (Public Domain): Act 1: Cherubino hides behind Susanna's chair as the count arrives.
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