Missa in C
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In the 1770s, Mozart was the most prolific composer of church music in the service of the Salzburg Prince-Archbishops. The Mass in C, KV 317 is dated March 23, 1779 in the autograph score and it appears that it was first performed in Salzburg Cathedral on Easter Sunday (April 4, 1779); Mozart would then have played the organ. It seems likely that the Church sonata in C, KV 329 with an obbligato organ part was written for the same occasion.
Mozart took two of his masses, possibly KV 317 and KV 337, with him when travelling to Munich in the fall of 1780 to prepare the premiere performance of Idomeneo, re di Creta, KV 366. He also had the mass performed several times in Vienna and in Baden near Vienna around 1790.
KV 317 is widely known as the Coronation Mass. This term cannot be traced to Mozart’s lifetime, though; the earliest occurrence is a set of parts associated with coronation ceremonies for Francis II, the last Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, as Emperor Francis I of Austria in 1806.
Did you know that only two masses by Mozart, KV 257 and KV 317, were published in score during the first fifty years after the composer’s death? Both masses were issued by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig in 1803. Mozart’s church music was widely disseminated in Southern Germany and the Habsburg lands, but almost exclusively in manuscript copies.
The celebration of the Mass is at the heart of Roman Catholic liturgy. Musical settings of the Ordinarium Missae consist of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus (with Osanna), Benedictus (with Osanna), and Agnus Dei. In Salzburg, a differentiated system existed to determine what kind of settings were required for which celebrations. Some of Mozart's earliest Masses were composed for special occasions such as priestly or church consecrations. After his appointment as concertmaster, Mozart regularly composed music for Salzburg Cathedral and was the most productive composer of church music there during the 1770s. The use of trumpets and timpani indicates that most of his settings were intended for feast days on which the Prince-Archbishop himself celebrated the Mass. Typically, Masses in southern Germany and Austria do not include viola parts. After moving to Vienna, Mozart never held another ecclesiastical office; nevertheless, he began composing several Masses there, though he completed none of them. In April 1791, Mozart's request to substitute for the ailing Kapellmeister of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Leopold Hofmann, was approved, but he did not live long enough to actually succeed him. The Requiem, as a Mass for the dead, uses a special form of the Missale Romanum. In Salzburg and Vienna, Requiem settings were composed only for special occasions.
Autograph, 1779
// Kyrie// del Signor Amadeo Wolfgango. Mozart./ li 23 marzo 1779
Partitur: 58 Bl. (115 beschr. Seiten)
Autograph, 1779
Stimme
Abschrift, 1791
Stimmen