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K. 275/272b

Missa brevis in B flat

In September 1777 Mozart and his mother, Anna Maria, set out for Paris. Two months later they were in Mannheim, on the Bavarian leg of their journey. Leopold, who had remained behind in Salzburg, followed their affairs and tried to manage them as best as he could. In a letter written Dec. 21 and 22, for example, he wrote: "My dear Wife and dear Son! I sent you in my last letter my views about your journey to Paris. I am delighted to see from your letter of December 14 that you have left the inn and are now well provided for on the whole for the next two months."

Later, in the same letter, Leopold continued: "I wrote the above yesterday, Sunday, December 21st, on my return home after the Horary Service, when your mass in B flat major was performed, in which the castrato sang most excellently."

The Mass Leopold described was this one, written sometime late in the year and probably not officially performed until after Mozart and his mother had departed. For this reason, Alfred Einstein believes it may have been a votive Mass, offered by the composer for the fortunate outcome of his journey. (Apparently to no avail. Thirteen months later Mozart returned to Salzburg, unemployed and brokenhearted after watching his mother die in Paris and after being spurned by Aloysia Weber in Munich.)

Of the Mass, Einstein writes: "It is so intimate, the orchestral apparatus so modest, so lyric, that it has an almost private character, in which the distinction between sacred and secular vanishes. At the same time it has a South-German popular quality, which explains why no other Mass by Mozart may be found in old manuscript copies in so many church music libraries."

Mozart himself must have had some fondness for the work. While in Munich for the production of Idomeneo (K. 366), he asked his father to send the Mass to him from Salzburg because, he wrote, "I should like people to hear some of my compositions in this style." It was performed as late as July 1791, at the parish church in Baden, where Mozart's wife, Constanze, was taking the cure. Mozart had become good friends with the choirmaster at the church; it was for him that Mozart composed his Motet in D, "Ave verum Corpus" (K. 618), that same year.

Recommended recordings:

• Mozart: Missa Brevis K. 275/Litaniae K. 195, Teldec 4509-93025-2

References:

• Anderson, Emily, ed. The Letters of Mozart and His Family. New York, 1985.
• Einstein, Alfred. Mozart, His Character, His Work. New York, 1962.
• Giegling, Weinmann and Sievers, eds. Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis samtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amadé Mozarts, 6th edition. Wiesbaden, 1964.
• Sadie, Stanley. The New Grove Mozart. New York, 1983.
• Zaslaw, Neal, and Cowdery, William, eds. The Compleat Mozart. New York, 1990.