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The Tournai Mass is a polyphonic setting of the mass from 14th-century France. It is preserved in a manuscript from the library of the Tournai Cathedral.
Before the 15th century, most musical settings of the Ordinary of the Mass were grouped according to movement. For instance, the Ivrea Codex and Apt Codex both contain mass movements, and these movements are grouped so that all of the Kyries are together, all of the Glorias are together, and so on. A priest selecting the music for the service would choose one from each group to be sung, and so any setting of a movement could be used in combination with any other. The Tournai Mass is the first known mass to have been written in a manuscript as if it were a single unified setting of the entire Ordinary. Three other similarly compiled masses from the 13th and early 14th century survive: the Toulouse Mass, Barcelona Mass, and Sorbonne Mass (also known as the Besançon Mass). All of these masses are anonymous, and musicological scholarship indicates that all of them are compilations of the works of several composers.
The Tournai Mass comprises six movements, each of which is for three voices.
Because of the wide disparities in style and notation, and because no underlying musical structure (such as a common cantus firmus or parody procedure) has been noted between the mass movements, the Tournai Mass is believed to have been composed independently by several musicians over a period of fifty or more years, and was later compiled by a scribe to be performed as a whole. The first known mass to have been conceived of and composed as a single unified work is the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut, who probably knew the Tournai Mass and may have used it as a model. [1]
The Tournai Mass was first described by Edmund Coussemaker in his 1869 report Une Messe du XIIIe Siecle (his 13th century designation is now considered erroneous). Anne Walters Robertson has proposed that the mass was not used for the liturgy, but was instead compiled for an "Annunciation drama" to celebrate the Virgin. [2]
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Guillaume de Machaut was a medieval French poet and composer. He is regarded by many musicologists as the greatest and most important composer of the 14th century. Machaut is one of the earliest composers on whom substantial biographical information is available, and Daniel Leech-Wilkinson called him "the last great poet who was also a composer". Well into the 15th century, Machaut's poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer.
The mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music. Most masses are settings of the liturgy in Latin, the liturgical sacred language of the Catholic Church's Roman liturgy, but there are a significant number written in the languages of non-Catholic countries where vernacular worship has long been the norm. For example, there are many masses written in English for the Church of England. Musical masses take their name from the Catholic liturgy called "the mass" as well.
Ars nova refers to a musical style which flourished in France and the Burgundian Low Countries in the late Middle Ages: more particularly, in the period between the preparation of the Roman de Fauvel (1310s) and the death of composer Guillaume de Machaut in 1377. The term is sometimes used more generally to refer to all European polyphonic music of the fourteenth century. For instance, "Italian ars nova" is sometimes used to denote the music of Francesco Landini and his compatriots. The "ars" in "ars nova" can be read as "technique", or "style". The term was first used in two musical treatises, titled Ars novae musicae by Johannes de Muris, and a collection of writings attributed to Philippe de Vitry often simply called "Ars nova" today. However, the term was first used to describe an historical era only by Johannes Wolf in 1904.
The Chigi codex is a music manuscript originating in Flanders. According to Herbert Kellman, it was created sometime between 1498 and 1503, probably at the behest of Philip I of Castile. It is currently housed in the Vatican Library under the call number Chigiana, C. VIII. 234.
The ordinary, in Roman Catholic and other Western Christian liturgies, refers to the part of the Eucharist or of the canonical hours that is reasonably constant without regard to the date on which the service is performed. It is contrasted to the proper, which is that part of these liturgies that varies according to the date, either representing an observance within the liturgical year, or of a particular saint or significant event, and to the common, which contains those parts that are common to an entire category of saints, such as apostles or martyrs.
In Renaissance music, the cyclic mass was a setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, in which each of the movements – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – shared a common musical theme, commonly a cantus firmus, thus making it a unified whole. The cyclic mass was the first multi-movement form in western music to be subject to a single organizing principle.
Missa brevis is Latin for "short Mass". The term usually refers to a mass composition that is short because part of the text of the Mass ordinary that is usually set to music in a full mass is left out, or because its execution time is relatively short.
Messe de Nostre Dame is a polyphonic mass composed before 1365 by French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut. Widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of medieval music and of all religious music, it is historically notable as the earliest complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer.
The Toulouse Mass is a polyphonic 14th-century musical setting of the Mass found in a manuscript in the municipal library of Toulouse. It was not composed by a single individual, but is presumed to have been compiled and performed as a unit. The present location of Toulouse does not necessarily mean it was composed there.
The Missa de Beata Virgine is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass, by Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez. A late work, probably composed or assembled around 1510, it was the most popular of his masses in the 16th century.
The Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville is a missa brevis written by Gabriel Fauré in collaboration with his former pupil André Messager. A later version, published as Messe basse contained only movements composed by Fauré.
The Barcelona Mass is a polyphonic mass written around 1360. Together with the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut and those of Toulouse, Tournai and the Sorbonne, it is one of the earliest preserved complete polyphonic musical settings of the Ordinary of the Mass. It is believed to belong to the repertoire of the Papal court at Avignon and is also linked to the chapel of King Martin I of Aragon.
The Mass No. 2 in E minor, WAB 27, by Anton Bruckner is a setting of the mass ordinary for eight-part mixed choir and fifteen wind instruments.
Ensemble Organum is a group performing early music, co-founded in 1982 by Marcel Pérès and based in France. Its members have changed, but have included at one time or another, Josep Cabré, Josep Benet, Gérard Lesne, Antoine Sicot, Malcolm Bothwell. They have often collaborated with Lycourgos Angelopoulos and are influenced by Orthodox music.
The Missa Gaudeamus is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez, probably composed in the early or middle 1480s, and published in 1502. It is based on the gregorian introit Gaudeamus Omnes and its setting is for four voices.
The Messe für den Gründonnerstag, WAB 9, is a missa brevis composed by Anton Bruckner in 1844.
The Missa Di dadi, also known as the Dice Mass or Missa N'aray je jamais mieulx, is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez, probably dating from around 1480. It uses the chanson N'aray je jamais mieulx by Robert Morton as the source of its cantus firmus, and also contains unique visual and musical references to dice. The latter is thought to be a reference to the popularity of gambling in the court of the Sforza family at Milan, where Josquin wrote it.
Antoine Sicot is a contemporary French soloist singer specialising in the baroque repertoire for bass voice.
Messe in G is a mass in G major by the English composer Christopher Tambling. He composed it in 2013, scored for mixed choir, orchestra and organ. It was first published in 2014.
Missa Providentiae is a Kyrie–Gloria Mass in D minor composed by Antonio Caldara, which around 1728 was expanded into a Missa tota by Jan Dismas Zelenka: this composer derived a Sanctus and Agnus Dei from Caldara's Kyrie and Gloria, and added a Credo, ZWV 31, of his own hand. Around 1738–1741, Johann Sebastian Bach made a copy of a Sanctus, BWV 239, which was based on the first section of the Gloria of Caldara's Kyrie–Gloria Mass.
