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.
Read more about this topic: Missa Caput
Famous quotes containing the word mass:
“After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)
“Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)