Mass (music)

For example, there have been many Masses written in English for a United States context since the Second Vatican Council, and others (often called "communion services") for the Church of England.

Complete masses by a single composer were the norm by the middle of the 15th century, and the form of the mass, with the possibilities for large-scale structure inherent in its multiple movement format, was the main focus of composers within the area of sacred music; it was not to be eclipsed until the motet and related forms became more popular in the first decades of the 16th century.

At the end of the 16th century, prominent representatives of a cappella choral counterpoint included the Englishman William Byrd, the Castilian Tomás Luis de Victoria and the Roman Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose Missa Papae Marcelli is sometimes credited with saving polyphony from the censure of the Council of Trent.

Other composers, such as Orlande de Lassus, working in Munich and comfortably distant from the conservative influence of the Council of Trent, continued to write parody masses on secular songs.

The early Baroque era initiated stylistic changes which led to increasing disparity between masses written entirely in the traditional polyphonic manner (stile antico), whose principal advancements were the use of the basso continuo and the gradual adoption of a wider harmonic vocabulary, and the mass in modern style with solo voices and instrumental obbligatos.

It spread to the German-speaking Catholic countries north of the Alps, using instruments for color and creating dialogues between solo voices and chorus that was to become characteristic of the 18th-century Viennese style.

Later masses, especially of Haydn, are of symphonic structure, with long sections divided into fewer movements, organized like a symphony, with soloists used as an ensemble rather than as individuals.

The revival of choral celebration of Holy Communion in the Anglican Church in the late 19th century marked the beginning several liturgical settings of mass texts in English, particularly for choir and organ.

[6] The movement for liturgical reform has resulted in revised forms of the mass, making it more functional by using a variety of accessible styles, popular or ethnic, and using new methods such as refrain and response to encourage congregational involvement.

[citation needed] Pope Pius X initiated many regulations reforming the liturgical music of the mass in the early 20th century.

Quite recently, Pope Benedict XVI has encouraged a return to chant as the primary music of the liturgy, as this is explicitly mentioned in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, specifically Sacrosanctum Concilium 116.

Since the texts of the 'Benedictus qui venit' and the 'Agnus Dei' do not actually feature in the liturgy of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, these movements are often missing from some of the earlier Anglican settings.

Charles Villiers Stanford composed a Benedictus and Agnus in the key of F major which was published separately to complete his service in C. With reforms in the Anglican liturgy, the movements are now usually sung in the same order that they are in the Roman Catholic rite.