".... one hundred years of singing"

The Mass

When Jesus explained (to his followers (St John’s Gospel chapter 6) with every possible emphasis that in order “to have life in them” they must be prepared to eat his body and drink his blood, many were horrified and “walked no longer with him”

It was only at the Last Supper, which Jesus ate with his disciples shortly before the crucifixion, that he showed them what he meant. Taking bread from the table he broke it and offered it to them, saying “This is my body”; he then took wine and offered that also, saying “This is my blood”. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have always held that in some real sense, the bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood when offered in this way. We can leave aside here the complex theological explanations of how this can be, for it probably will always defy human understanding, but it was a belief from the earliest times, to such an extent that Christians were thought to celebrate secret rites in which they practised cannibalism.

The Mass as it developed over the two thousand years since the Crucifixion is a church service with some introductory prayers, followed by an offering of the bread and wine, which is then consecrated by the priest, thereby becoming the body and blood of Christ. Jesus is then again offered to God the Father as he once offered himself willingly for the horrific death by crucifixion. Following that the Lord’s Prayer is said or sung, and the people eat the consecrated bread and wine before the final prayers. In the Mass then, the sacrifice of Calvary, although made by Jesus once and for all, is nevertheless made present to us in the 21st century in order that we may more fully share in it and in its spiritual benefits.

So much for the theology. Now to the music. In early times, right up to the Mediaeval period, mass was normally sung. The leisured classes at least apparently heard mass every day. Gregorian chant had pride of place, and is still heard today, especially in monastories and cathedrals. But as European music developed, it became usual to write for several voices from Treble to Bass and the music became much more complex. The composers we think of first, such as Haydn, Mozart etc normally wrote a setting for the most of these parts of the mass: the Kyrie (Lord have mercy), the Dies Irae (in Masses for the Dead, known as Requiem Masses), the Gloria, the Creed, the Offertory prayer, the Sanctus, the Benedictus and the Agnus Dei. There was often a tension between the church’s need to keep the music subordinate to the action of the mass and the composer’s desire to give full expression to his musical inspiration.

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