Overview
Introduction
Mozart's Mass in G major, K. 49/47d), is his first full mass. It is a missa brevis scored for SATB soloists and choir, violin I and II, viola, and basso continuo.
Mozart wrote the Mass in G major at the age of 12. It was however neither his first setting of a part of the mass ordinary — two years earlier he had already composed a Kyrie (K. 33) —, nor was it his largest composition with a religious theme up to date: his sacred musical play Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots had been premiered in the previous year.
History
Composed in Vienna in the autumn of 1768, this mass is Mozart's only missa brevis to feature a viola part. It is not clear what occasion it was composed for, and it has been confused with the Waisenhausmesse, composed in the same year.
Religious music at the time was increasingly influenced by opera and Baroque embellishments in instrumentation; Mozart's early masses, such as K. 49/47d, have been seen as a return to the more austere settings of the pre-Baroque era.
Movements
The six movements of the mass follow the traditional Order of Mass:
- Kyrie Adagio, G major, common time
- "Kyrie eleison" Andante, G major, 3/4
- Gloria Allegro, G major, common time
- Credo Allegro, G major, 3/4
- "Et incarnatus est" Poco Adagio, C major, cut common time
- "Et resurrexit" Allegro, G major, cut common time
- "Et in Spiritum Sanctum" Andante, C major, 3/4; bass solo
- "Et in unam sanctam" Allegro, G major, cut common time
- Sanctus Andante, G major, 3/4
- "Pleni sunt coeli et terra" Allegro, G major, 3/4
- "Hosanna in excelsis" Allegro, G major, 4/2
- Benedictus Andante, C major, 3/4; soloist quartet
- "Hosanna in excelsis" Allegro, G major, 4/2
- Agnus Dei Adagio, G major, cut common time
- "Dona nobis pacem" Allegro, G major, 3/8
