From Heavenly Harmony
At Play in the House of the Lord
by Ken Myers
In anticipation of the Mozart bicentennial celebration in 1956, Karl Barth was invited by a Swiss newspaper to write "A Letter of Thanks to Mozart." Initially skeptical of the assignment, Barth obliged the editors with a brief epistle in the spirit of Mozartian playfulness. The correspondence closed with a much-cited speculation: "It may be that when the angels go about their task of praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille, they play Mozart and that then too our Lord listens with special pleasure."
The music of Mozart, second only to that of J. S. Bach, has inspired the most enthusiastic recognition of spiritual qualities, although the distinction made in Barth's scenario captures an important difference in the kind of spiritual quality felt in the two composers' repertoires. While the music of each captures a sense of transcendent order, Mozart's work is typically heard in terms of a more domestic, earthly, and human scale. In Mozart's acoustic world, the light triumphs over the darkness with lightness—that is, deftness, not triviality—which makes his musical spaces seem friendlier than those described by Bach. Childlike joy is rarely ascribed to Bach's compositions, as it so often is to Mozart's, though Bach jokes and plays and dances not infrequently. In Mozart, the goodness of Creation is often warmly evoked. Bach seems to suggest the goodness of the Creator himself, at once awful and personal.
Late & Unfinished
A recent recording of Mozart's Mass in C Minor (K. 427) prompted these reflections, perhaps because the performers were the Bach Collegium Japan under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki, one of the foremost living interpreters of Bach's choral music. Like Mozart's Requiem (recorded in 2015 by Suzuki and Co.), the Mass in C Minor was both a late work and an unfinished one. The Requiem is probably the best-known sacred choral work composed by Mozart, or, more accurately, commenced by Mozart, as the score was incomplete at the time of his death in 1791. It was finished by a friend and pupil, enabling Mozart's impoverished widow to collect the commission payment.
The Mass in C Minor was begun in 1782, the year after Mozart set up shop as a freelance musician in Vienna. Mozart had written over a dozen settings of the Mass in the years between 1769 and 1779, being obliged to do so by the requirements of his court and cathedral positions in Salzburg. But we have no record of why he began work on this later Mass, nor of why he never finished it after having made such promising beginnings.
The "Kyrie" and "Gloria" of this Mass are complete and boast more subtlety, mystery, and passion (not to mention length) than the comparable movements from the earlier and more celebrated Coronation Mass in C Major of 1779 (K. 317). The "Kyrie" in the later work includes large-scale choral counterpoint that opens and closes the movement, while the middle "Christe" section features a delicate and imploring solo soprano.
The "Gloria" in the Mass in C Minor (which, in eight separate sections, is more than five times longer than its counterpart in the Coronation Mass) begins in C major, with an appropriately joyous chorus replicating the original "Gloria in excelsis" once sung by angels to shepherds. This opening section is followed by the "Laudamus te,"a soprano solo singing the four iterations of worship found in the historic text: "We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee." This virtuoso movement—often featured in concert and on recordings separate from the Mass—boasts the exuberance and disciplined extravagance of all true praise. Barth once remarked that he regularly hears the spirit of play in Mozart:
But play is something so lofty and demanding that it requires mastery. . . . Beautiful playing presupposes an intuitive, childlike awareness of the essence or center—as also the beginning and the end—of all things. It is from this center, from this beginning and end, that I hear Mozart create his music.
The four Latin phrases here early in the "Gloria" summarize the beginning and end (telos) of all things, where disciplined and beautiful play is supremely fitting.
Echoes of Bach
Ken Myers is the host and producer of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. Formerly an arts editor with National Public Radio, he also serves as music director at All Saints Anglican Church in Ivy, Virginia. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on music from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
Bach's Cantata BWV 106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbesteZeit (God's time is the very best time) by Ken Myers
more from the online archives
19.4—May 2006
The Culture War Is Between Religious Believers on Both Sides by Howard P. Kainz
24.1—January/February 2011
Ruminations on the Monstrous Envy of the Soul-Devouring State by Anthony Esolen
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
