Product Overview
This a cappella setting of the first two movements of the Mass offers elementary exposure to the fundamental styles of J.S. Bach and Franz Schubert. The first movement, Kyrie, combines the styles of the two composers. After an eight-measure introduction, the Kyrie text is delivered as a simple four-part fugue exposition in the style of Bach; no extension or development of the fugue subject is presented. The Christe text is delivered in short, repetitive contrapuntal phrases in a simplified version of Schubert's style. The movement ends with a double fugue alla Bach. Two subjects, one for the Kyrie text and one for the Christe text, are presented in combination. Both subjects appear in each voice part, along with some counterpoint, but the subjects are not developed. Beginning in measure 58, the movement presents the Christe subject in stretto (that is, with each entrance of the subject overlapping the preceding one), a familiar Bach technique. The movement concludes with a straightforward four-measure coda.
The Credo movement includes only a portion of the Credo text, as did Schubert's Mass settings. It sets the words to a primarily stepwise melody in the soprano part, supported homophonically by the over voices, a familiar Schubertian technique. Atypical of Schubert's writing, however, are the frequent shifts of meter. These are provided to place the stressed syllables of the Latin text on musical downbeats. Schubert's writing often places textual and metrical stress at odds with one another.
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