Mass with Mozart and Schubert

I have never attended Mass there, but my husband and I found ourselves in the neighborhood of St John Cantius recently, (it shares an alley with an audition studio,) at the right time and stopped in to vespers.
We've been back since several times. It is a very moving, very stirring liturgy they, (and we, when we are with them) do there. Looking forward to being able to attend Mass, or some of their music programs.
The reverence and fervor is palpable, and, I should think, contagious.

For me it's a real toss up.....I've been to a live performance of the Bminor Mass at the Marlboro College annual Bach Festival and one here at home--the Mozart Requiem......I wonder which one the angels would choose as No. 1 on the heavenly hit parade....wow...tough choice!!

Thanks for the link.

It is interesting that these orchestral masses are sung during a 1962 Mass, as in the United States (in contrast to, for example, Austria) they would have still been blacklisted at the time that Missal was published. An effect of II Vatican upon the current celebration of the 1962 Missal?

Even these days, when these masses (for example, the Mozart Coronation Mass) were sung for the 1970 Mass in my home parish, we sat (I must have rolled my eyes every single time!) for the Gloria, and the Agnus Dei was often replaced by the "Jubilate Deo" Agnus Dei and moved to Communion (cue the brow-furrowing!). And the only Mozart mass I have sung (albeit several times), the Sparrow Mass, while relatively brief, did not escape cuts.

Maybe the best things about long masses is that they abbreviate all but the most insensate homilist! I think that in the United States we all know some pastors, and maybe even the parishioners who apparently terrorize them, who think that there is a sixty-minute time limit on any Mass other than the Easter Vigil.

I am going to pay attention to the procession of acolytes in our parish this Sunday; I am not sure whether it starts at the beginning or at the end of the Sanctus. The video shows the only possibility with the music for the old Mass. Synchronization with the Benedictus would be more appropriate with the Novus ordo Mass, I think, but then again with an itty bitty Sanctus-Benedictus like the "Jubilate Deo," there would not be anywhere near sufficient time.

Schubert: @"not a born contrapuntist" as someone remarked after a sing-through of one of his Masses.

Anyone else think Mozart Masses should be allowed only in Austria, as a form of inculturation: or does anyone claim for them the status of respectable liturgical music?

About ten years or so ago, for the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul, and for the ordination of a large number of bishops, His Holiness John Paul the Great had Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (and I believe, Choir) perform Mozart's Coronation Mass at the Vatican. So apparently, HH JPII and Cardinal Ratzinger appear to believe that at least one Mozart mass is appropriate liturgical music.

While my taste for Western Liturgical Music runs more to little a capella ditties like Vaughan Williams' Mass in G Minor or Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli, I personally think that Mozart's and Schubert's liturgical confections are more liturgically appropriate than, say, the Mass of Creation.

Bernard, I have a CD recording of that particular Vatican Mass you mentioned. It was recorded in 1985 (the CD was published in 1986). It is truly amazing.

Dear Paul:

I am so glad to see that you are still alive and webloging. Things had been so slow lately.

Thank you for letting me know that the Vatican Coronation Mass was recorded. If you could, I would very much appreciate getting the info regarding that particular recording (disc number, publisher, whether still in print, etc.)

Bernard, I could not tell you whether or not it is still in print. I bought it at a used music sale. It is published by Deutsche Grammophon #419-096-2.

The chant of the Mass are sung by the Capella Musicale Pontificia Sistina, and the Coronation Mass is performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dear Paul:

Thank you for the title, publisher (DGG) and CD number. With them, and Google, I was able to find that it is still in print, and that it is the same recording that I saw on television, lo these many years ago.

Two things that I remember about it (one of which, alas, one won't be able to get on the CD) was of von Karajan wiping the tears of joy from his eyes while conducting the "Gloria" of Mozart's Coronation Mass. The other was of an Irish lector who did perhaps the best job of chanting in English that I have ever heard, and which alone is worth the price of admission.