Unfinished business

Stewkley Singers rise to a challenge. We enjoy it. We must do, because we’re still here after 20 years of being stretched to the limit, stamina- and talent-wise, by Our Jen, our delightfully demanding Musical Director.

Our Jen only needs to top up her own stamina levels when the sun goes behind the yardarm. As for her talent, it knows no bounds. She can spot a semitone from a demiquaver at 100 paces, and a minor seventh from an augmented sixth without her glasses. Therefore, her charges’ inability to perfect a chromatic scale at the second time of asking must somewhat try her patience. Regardless, she keeps the faith as avidly as do Marcus and Monica during the MasterChef skills’ test. 

For the Singers’ concert this May, Our Jen is putting us through our paces with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor, K. 427, one of his greatest works, which befits local charity Florence Nightingale Hospice. As it’s our 20th anniversary concert, we’ve decided to give a little something back to the community that has supported us throughout, and surplus proceeds will be donated to the Hospice, which does what it says on the tin. More information at www.stewkleysingers.org .

The Great Mass is described by Google’s little helper (AI) as “a monumental, unfinished missa solemnis1 composed in 1782–83, celebrated for its grandeur, intricate choral writing, and expressive solo parts”. The word ‘unfinished’ is key here. Did Mozart intend to leave the work half cock as an abstract postmodern experiment? Will we leave the audience hanging in mid fugue? Are we expected to finish composing it ourselves?

Mozart died just shy of his 36th birthday. Nonetheless, he managed to complete 626 compositions that include (but are not limited to) 41 symphonies, 27 piano concertos, numerous string quartets, and around 20 operas. It’s therefore not surprising that he didn’t complete every piece he started. According to Timothy Jones, Professor at London's Royal Academy of Music, in the last decade of Mozart’s life he wrote more than 100 fragments of compositions that remained fragments from his own hand.

Mozart’s most famous unfinished work is his Requiem in D minor, K. 6262, which he was working on as he lay on his deathbed, so perhaps he can be forgiven for leaving that one on the floor. He didn’t have the same excuse for not completing his Great Mass, nor his opera Zaide, K.344. Other pieces he cut to the wire, like his Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466. His father, Leopold, described it to his daughter Anna Maria (Leopold’s sister) as “an excellent new piano concerto by Wolfgang, on which the copyist was still at work when we got here, and your brother didn't even have time to play through the rondo because he had to oversee the copying operation.”

Why did Mozart fail to complete so many of his works? According to Google’s distant great-uncle, Wikipedia, his “inability to finish many of his compositions was … often a result of his busy schedule, financial constraints, or personal circumstances. He was constantly working on new projects, which sometimes led to the abandonment of unfinished pieces. Additionally, some of his works were simply not well-suited for completion at the time, and he may have had difficulty finishing them due to compositional blockages or other technical challenges.”

Professor Jones explained that Mozart could be lazy for months on end, “but then when he started working, he worked very rapidly and very intensively.” Mozart had a tendency to write in fits and starts, he said, leaving himself enough clues to pick up where he left off later.

So what went on with Mozart’s Great ‘Missa Solemnis’? He composed it in Vienna after his marriage to Constanze (née Weber) – a soprano diva by any other name. The Mass shows the influence of Bach and Handel, whose music Mozart was studying at the time. It’s scored for two soprano soloists, a tenor and a bass, double chorus and large orchestra, which doesn’t leave much room in our church for an audience. Mozart tailored the large range and challenging ‘coloratura’ (a pretentious way of saying very complicated and difficult music) to Constanze's voice, so she could display her talents, which is probably how she hooked Mozart in the first place.

Elaborated from the Catholic Mass, most settings of a missa solemnis include the "Kyrie" (Lord), "Gloria" (Glory), "Credo" (I believe – no, not the Frankie Laine hit), "Sanctus" (Saint), "Benedictus" (Blessed) and "Agnus Dei" (Lamb of God). The opening performance of Mozart’s Great Mass consisted of just the "Kyrie", "Gloria", "Sanctus" and "Benedictus". The "Credo" was just partially written and the "Agnus Dei" appears not to have been started. According to Chicago Chorale, Mozart never completed the work, possibly “due to the upheaval in Mozart's life following his resignation from the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg and his marriage to Constanze.”

Various scholars have endeavoured to complete the Great Mass. Some aimed to simply fill out the missing orchestrations and choral parts in the "Credo" and "Sanctus", whereas others completed the work by either using movements from other masses or composing new music for the "Credo" and "Agnus Dei" through the use of parody or elaboration of period sketches by Mozart. The version the Singers will perform in May stays as faithful to Mozart’s extant texts as possible, with some ‘touching up’ here and ‘subtle colouration’ there.

Mention was made above of the coloratura for the soprano soloists. Well, it’s not that much easier for the choir I can tell you. Long passages of galloping ah-ha-hars are interspersed with atonal chords and counter-intuitive rhythms. That’s not all. It’s in Latin, which is a mixed blessing (benedictio) for the Singers’ Huddersfield mafia, of which I am a card-carrying member. While many of the vowels should be delivered flat, which suits us down to a tea, we have a problem when instructed to roll our r’s because we prefer ours ‘tapped’. And without wishing to sound snobbish, we don’t actually drop our h’s – that’s what the working class does.

Yes indeedy, Mozart’s Great Mass is a tour de force of range, conviction, emotions and cultural challenges. But if the Mozart is a tour de force, then the other piece we’re tackling – Haydn’s Te Deum – is a romp in the hay. Two "Allegro" (Italian for fast) movements in C major, separated by an "Adagio" (slow) in C minor, conclude “with a stirring double fugue on the words ‘In te Domine speravi’ [In you, Lord, I hope]. A coda-like section, distinguished by overlapping instrumental and choral phrases with syncopated rhythms, brings the piece to glorious close.”3 

At which point, the Huddersfield mafia will be joining Our Jen under the yardarm.

1 Missa solemnis is Latin for ‘solemn mass,’ referring to a highly ceremonial and elaborate musical setting of the Catholic Mass, the central liturgical service of the Catholic Church, where the Eucharist is celebrated, and it is considered the source and summit of the Christian life.

2 A Requiem is a Mass for the dead.

3 © Aylesbury Choral Society, December 2003