3-?l ANTON BRUCKNER'S TREATMENT OF THE CREDO TEXT IN HIS LAST THREE MASSES THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF MUSIC By Namjai Lee, B.M. Denton, Texas December, 1985 Lee, Namjai, Anton Bruckner's Treatment of the Credo Text in His Last Three Masses. Master of Music (Musicology), December, 1985, 75 pp., 22 tables, 4 examples, bibliography, 64 titles. In order to investigate the stylistic transformation that occured before Bruckner abandoned the composition of Masses, this paper analyzes the Credo settings in his last three great Masses, with special attention to the treatment of the text. The relationship between the text and specific musical techniques is also considered. The trends found in these three works, especially in the last setting in F minor, confirm the assumption that Bruckner's Mass composition served as a transition to the composition of his symphonies. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES . ..... .. * ..... .ii LIST OF EXAMPLES ....... ... V Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . 1 II. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FORMAL STRUCTURE IN THREE CREDO SETTINGS . 7 The Structure of Part I (Patrem) The Structure of Part II (Et incarnatus) The Structure of Part III (Et resurrexit) The Structure of Part IV (Et in Spiritum Sanctum) Conclusion III. THE CREDO TEXT AND ITS SPECIFIC .. .e *n.. 48 MUSICAL TREATMENT . Phrase Structure Repetition of the Text Textual Illustration IV. CONCLUSIONS . 64 APPENDIXA . 67 BIBLIOGRAPHY -0 - 1--a-a-0 -- .0.0 .0. .0. 0. 0. 70 ii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. The tempo, meter, and key of the first four parts of the three Credo settings . 9 2. The number of measures in each part . 11 3. The structure of Part I of the D minor and E minor Mass Credos . 12 4. The structure of Part I of the F minor Mass Credo . .. *.. 13 5. The expansion of the structure in the first subdivision of Part I in the D minor and E minor settings into Part I of the F minor setting ............... 14 6. The key scheme of the first section of Part I of the D minor and E minor settings and PartI of the F minor setting . .15 7. The structure of Part II of the D minor settingure. Part. I,o. the B mi.nor... 21 8. The structure of Part II of the E minor setting # . 0 . * . 0 . * . 22 9. The structure of Part II of the F minor setting . # . * . 23 10. The musical structure of the first section of Part II of the three Credo settings . 24 11. The structure of Part III of the three Credo settings . 28 12. The division of text in Part III of the three Credo settings . 33 iii 13. The structure of Part IV of the three Credo settings0.*0 . .& . 9 . .9 37 14. List of the bar-form phrases . 9 . 49 15. List of text repetitions . 9 50 16. List of word painting . 9 . 9 . 53 17. List of the passages in unison . 9 9 9 * . 9 55 18. List of a cappella passages . 9 -9 58 19. List of pedal points . 59 20. List of polyphonic passages . 60 21. List of solo passages ........ 9 9 . 9 . 61 22. List of passages doubled by trombones . 9 . 62 iv LIST OF EXAMPLES Example Page l. Deum de Deo and Et expecto parts in the D minor setting . .. .. #.. 42 2. Patrem omnipotentem and Et expecto parts inthe E minor setting . 43 3. Et resurrexit and Et expecto parts in the F minor setting . ......... 44 4. The last statement of the fugue subject in the Coda of the F minor Mass Credo . 52 V lw -pm.- lu -,, -04k" 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) is best known today as a composer of symphonies, but he is also considered by many music historians to be one of the most important composers of Catholic church music in the nineteenth century. The majority of his early works were sacred vocal compositions, and symphonies were composed relatively late in his life. Among his sacred vocal music, there are seven Masses, including a Requiem. Bruckner's first two Masses, in C for alto solo, two horns, and organ (1842) and in F for a cappella chorus (1844) were composed when he was an assistant teacher at small villages in Upper Austria, and reflect the limited performing forces available at that time. The Requiem in D minor (1848-49) and the Missa Solemnis (1854) were written while he worked at St. Florian as an assistant teacher and organist. These two works are far more 1. The biographical information is based mainly on Hans- Hubert Sch~nzeler, Bruckner (New York: Grossman, 1970), Derek Watson, Bruckner (London: Dent, 1975) and Deryck Cooke, "Bruckner, Anton," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th ed., 20 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980), III, 352-71. 2 ambitious in size and structure than the first two. Real maturity, however, is reached only in the three great Masses: the Mass in D minor (1864), the Mass in E minor (1866), and the Mass in F minor (1867-68), which were composed after a ten year hiatus. The three great Masses were composed during the last four years of Bruckner's tenure as organist at the cathedral of Linz (1855-1868); this was the only period he was employed as a full-time church musician. During the thirteen years of the Linz period, he devoted the first eight years to the continuation of his musical study. He studied traditional harmony and counterpoint with Simon Sechter for nearly seven years (1855-1861). This was followed by the study of the principles of musical form and orchestration (1862-63) with Otto Kitzler. Kitzler's instruction, especially because of his introduction of Bruckner to Wagner's music, was partly responsible for the composer's change from church music to symphonies. He finally completed all of his musical studies at the age of thirty-nine and embarked upon a series of large-scale works: the Symphony "Nullte" in D minor (1863-64), the Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1865-66), and the three great Masses. In 1868, the year when he finished the Mass in F minor, he moved to Vienna where his main 3 duty was to teach harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatory. He continued to write sacred music, but most of the later works except for the Te Deum (1881) and the setting of Psalm 150 (1892), are short, concentrated pieces. During this last twenty-eight years of his life, Bruckner made no attempt to compose another Mass. Instead, he concentrated his creative energy on composing symphonies; he composed eight symphonies in Vienna. Commentators tend to treat the three great Masses as a whole. Nonetheless, they are quite different, at least in their outward appearances. The first (D minor) and the third (F minor) employ a full orchestra along with a mixed chorus and soloists, while the second (E minor), reflecting the influence of the Caecilian movement, employs only a wind ensemble and mixed chorus. Other difference can be seen in the retention of the plainchant intonation of the Gloria and Credo in the first and second, while the third includes these intonations in its musical setting. This sort of treatment in the Mass in F minor has much in common with the practices of the second half of the eighteenth century, described by Karl Fellerer: Composers did not follow the organization and construction of the text, but rather concerned themselves only with the demands of the musical forms. This accounts for the practice of including the intonations of the Gloria and the Credo within the composition . The repetition of words for the sake of emphasis (e.g.,, non, Credo) was a result partly of this individualistic expressiveness and partly of purely musical and metrical considerations (e.g., et in terra pax/pax hominibus). This expressiveness, determined as it was by a rationalistic construction and by sentimentalism, sought for thematic contrast and its elaboration in the closed symphonic form.2 Perhaps a logical conclusion to this practice of superseding textual consideration with musical one was Bruckner's total abandonment of the text and the assumption of the mantle of symphonist. This is supported a by Schdnzeler who writes: The fact that within the space of four years, between autumn 1864 and autumn 1868, Bruckner conceived and composed these three great Masses and then never even considered writing another, has often been commented upon. Some writers have seen in it the 'proof' that Bruckner's religious fervour was on the decline, but this is decisively contradicted not only by the evidence of his own life and the reports of his friends and contemporaries, but also by the list of his compositions written during the Vienna period, the last twenty-eight years of his life, which includes a number of very beautiful and deeply moving choral works of a liturgical nature as well as his great Te Deum of 1883-84 and the 150th Psalm of 1892. The answer surely lies in 2. Karl Fellerer, The History of Catholic Church Music. trans. Francis A. Brunner (~Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1961), 154-5. 5 an entirely different direction. It must have become increasingly obvious to Bruckner that his true vocation was the symphony. Whereas in the days when he was still somewhat unsure of himself in this field he had felt the need for words, the text of the Mass, to express that which filled his entire being, in later years, as his powers of symphonic utterance increased, those very words which had originally served as an inspiration become a hindrance, and he was able to sing his Gloria, his Credo and his Benedictus in the wordless, all-embracing, absolute music of his gigantic symphonic movements.3 Theodore Mathews, however, suggests a different explanation for the change: The greater flexibility with which Bruckner treated text in these three Masses would have been increasingly difficult to reconcile with the conservative attitudes that were becoming popular in the Church at that time.