Author name: Marty Sauser

The Mass no. 6 in E-flat major was one of Schubert’s final compositions, written just a few months before his death. It was commissioned by the Alserkirche in Vienna, the same church where Schubert had been a torchbearer at Beethoven’s funeral scarcely a year earlier. Though he completed the piece before his death, it was not premiered until the fall of 1829, conducted by his older brother Ferdinand, who was himself a teacher and composer and had played first violin in the Schubert family string quartet that the younger Franz also played in and wrote for as a boy. Overall, the Mass in E-flat is a monument to Schubert’s mature musical style and a significant marker of the evolution of early Romantic music.

The “Cum Sancto Spiritu” fugue is one of the two crown jewels of this Mass. As with the other great fugue to come at the end of the Credo, it is massive and harmonically daring. Despite the length, Schubert expertly imbues it with contrast and development that leaves listeners (and sight-readers) wondering where it will go next.

Welcome, and thank you for joining The Kent Singers as we bring our 50th season to a celebratory close!

Franz Joseph Haydn’s Te Deum no. 2 in C major serves as a suitably festive opener for this occasion. The Te Deum is a hymn of praise from Christian liturgy, and, though it is a regular part of Matins or Morning Prayer services in some denominations, it can be appended to other services on special occasions. Because of this use of the text, many composers have written celebratory settings of the Te Deum like this one, which was commissioned around 1799 by Empress Maria Theresa, wife of Francis II, who was the last Holy Roman Emperor and first Emperor of Austria. Haydn was highly successful and popular but jealously guarded by his wealthy and powerful employers, the Esterházy family, so it was rare that they allowed him to compose music for others—even an empress. Haydn, who composed many short Mass settings, was no stranger to fitting a great deal of text into a compact piece of music. He often resorted to “telescoping” the text of the Credo by having different voice parts sing different sections of text at the same time to get through it faster (a technique used by other composers as well, and often in conflict with the wishes of the clergy). There is almost no such telescoping in this piece, though. Indeed, much of the text is sung homophonically (all parts singing at the same time), providing much clarity and showcasing Haydn’s sensitivity to the text.

Overall, the music is characteristic of Haydn, who was known for both his technical prowess and his inventiveness. (His contributions to musical forms were so influential that Haydn is often credited as “father of the symphony” and “father of the string quartet.”) Structurally, this piece is divided into a three-part form, something Haydn helped popularize to the extent that it grew to be standard: outer fast sections with a slower middle section. For added contrast, the middle section is also in the minor mode. The opening theme, heard in the brief orchestral introduction and then sung in unison by the choir, is a quote of one of the Gregorian chant melodies historically used for the Te Deum hymn. While Haydn quickly moves to newly composed material and four-part harmony, he frequently returns to a unison texture at the beginning or end of a section, which has a striking effect. Baroque-style fugues were well out of musical fashion by this time, but Haydn often incorporated them into the final section of a piece, as he does here before a final coda full of harmonic surprises. No doubt his audiences forgave him the anachronism because of the exciting freshness of the rest of his music. He was a master of subverting expectations, and his themes develop rapidly, often bringing a sense of playfulness to the music despite its careful structure.