Muhly - Bright Mass with Canons

Описание: Nico Muhly - Bright Mass with Canons, 2005.

For John Scott and the Choir of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, New York.

Performed by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, with Grant Gershon on Organ.

Kyrie: 0:00
Gloria: 3:24
Sanctus: 7:36
Agnus Dei: 10:21

Program Notes by the Composer:
Bright Mass with Canons was written for John Scott and the choir of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, New York. There are canons "" imitative repetitions "" in almost every bar of the Mass. In the Kyrie and Gloria, canons reference the imitative writing of early English composers Byrd and Weelkes, whereas the canonic writing in the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei is more abstract and spatial. The most intense use comes towards the beginning the Sanctus, in which each singer repeats a given figure in his own time, creating a flurry of sound to fill the space in St. Thomas's sanctuary.

And,

The Bright Mass with Canons is an attempt to rediscover the tropes and moments that brightened my childhood music-making. So, in that spirit, the piece is constructed around these little fetishes. The Kyrie begins with bright, brash trumpets, moving towards a modal, plaintive line. The Gloria is rhythmically insistent, but not too much so, and builds towards exactly the kind of outrageous, suspended climax I adored singing. The Sanctus, on the other hand, looks towards electronic music in its use of aleatoric, insect-like twitching from the upper voices, and also looks to Howells with its long, unctuous lines. The Agnus Dei ends the Mass solemnly, with only the slightest tilt of the head upwards as a semi-chorus outlines, with appoggiaturas, an ascending scale.