Missa Caput - The Mass

The Mass

It is a setting of the main movements of the ordinary of the mass, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Unlike most cyclic English masses of the period, it includes a polyphonic Kyrie: most of the others had the Kyrie sung in plainchant. Each movement states the structural melody twice through, and always in the tenor. It is stylistically close enough to the work of John Dunstaple that it has been suggested that it may be his work, but no actual link has been found.

The most significant feature of the mass for the development of music on the continent was its freely composed bass line. The possibilities must have been obvious to composers, since many immediately imitated the procedure, which allowed for harmonic freedom unchained to the tenor, a voice which formerly inhabited the lowest range alone. Freely composed, the bass could control harmony in a way that made possible the chord progressions and gradual shift to functional tonality that took place a hundred years later. The late 15th century was to see an outpouring of music exploiting low tessituras, for example in the output of Johannes Ockeghem, an innovation which began with the Missa Caput.