ANTON BRUCKNER (1824-1896) MASS NO. 2 IN E MINOR, WAB 27 (1866) Scored for: two oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, and chorus Performance time: 44 minutes First Grant Park Orchestra performance Though one typically thinks of Anton Bruckner as a composer of monumental symphonies, sacred music dominated much of the composer’s career. It served as a direct expression of his deeply held Catholic faith instilled in him as a choirboy at St. Florian’s Monastery. Bruckner began his career not as a musician, but as a village schoolteacher. In his final teaching post, which happened to be at his former childhood haunt of St. Florian’s, he took over the monastery’s organist position alongside his teaching duties in 1850. His organ chops improved, and he began seriously studying counterpoint. In 1856, he was appointed organist of Linz Cathedral, for which he would write his Mass in E Minor ten years later. Much of Bruckner’s sacred music reflects the ethos of the Cecilian reform movement that was gaining traction in the Catholic church at the time. The aim of the movement was to restore the dignity and purity of church music, which its proponents believed had become corrupted by the “worldliness” of post-Enlightenment secular music. Cecilians argued that the only way to achieve this was to go back to Gregorian chant and the music of sixteenth-century masters such as Palestrina. Fortunately, Bruckner had grown up singing this music at St. Florian’s and was not entirely unsympathetic to the Cecilians’ cause. However, he did butt heads with major figures in the movement after they edited dissonances out of his music, leading Bruckner to purportedly call Cecilianism “an illness.” Nevertheless, the Mass in E Minor marks Bruckner’s most sustained engagement with the principles of Cecilianism. In it, he synthesizes Romantic harmonies with sixteenthcentury counterpoint to create a work that stands apart from his other mass settings, which are more in line with the lavish Viennese Classical Mass style of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Bruckner demonstrates his intimate understanding of the sixteenth-century style so revered by the Cecilians throughout the mass. He emphasizes perfect intervals, uses contrapuntally-informed suspensions, and even quotes the Sanctus from Palestrina’s Missa Brevis, borrowing a melodic figure of falling thirds and a descending scale in overlapping entrances in his own Sanctus. In addition, large sections of the mass have no, or very restrained, instrumental accompaniment, giving it the air of a Renaissance motet at times. This occurs most notably in the opening of the Kyrie, which is largely a capella except at key moments. However, the choral writing becomes more adventurous and even quasi-operatic, particularly in the Gloria and Credo. The harmonies become more Romantic and ambiguous, and the “Amen” of the Gloria is scored as a hair-raisingly intricate chromatic fugue. Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor is his only mass setting to enjoy consistent performance today, despite its retrospective style and unusual scoring for fifteen-piece wind band in place of a traditional symphony orchestra. When the mass premiered in 1869, it was performed in the square outside Linz Cathedral. The outdoor performance requirements could explain Bruckner’s unique choice of orchestration. Plus, it makes it an especially appropriate selection for an outdoor music festival. ©2021 Katherine Buzard 6
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