Chorale is swimming in deep waters this winter. Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, and Frank Martin are giants in the world of Western music; performing their works requires skill, range, and humility. We have been working with them since January 3, and find there are no shortcuts; each speaks a language so distinct, complex, and compelling, that one wonders how we will have time and space to comprehend them.
The least-known of the three, Frank Martin (1890-1974), whose Mass for Double Chorus we will perform, was born in Geneva, Switzerland. His ancestors were French Huguenots who left France in the 16th century, and his father was a Calvinist minister. Primarily a pianist, Martin was largely self-taught as a composer, never attending conservatory. Rather, he attended Latin school and went on to study mathematics and physics at the University of Geneva for two years. Simultaneously he studied piano and composition with composer Joseph Lauber, who also introduced him to instrumental writing. Between 1918 and 1926 he lived in Zurich, Rome and Paris, working on his own, performing on harpsichord and piano, teaching, and searching for a personal musical language. After World War II he moved to the Netherlands, where he remained for the rest of his life.
The early years of the twentieth century were a period of extreme ferment and unrest in Western music. Martin’s unusually prolonged development reflects that turmoil, during which he studied and experimented with music that had preceded him, trying to find a place for himself and his ideas. Early on, he composed in a linear, consciously archaic style, reminiscent of fifteenth and sixteenth century sacred vocal music, restricted to modal melodies and perfect triads. Later in the same decade he enriched his harmonic and rhythmic palette through experimentation with Indian and Bulgarian rhythms and folk music.
In 1932 he became interested in Arnold Schoenberg’s work with 12-tone serialism. He incorporated some elements of this technique into his own musical language, but refused to abandon tonality altogether. Ultimately, he developed a strong personal style, strongly influenced by elements of German music, particularly that of J.S. Bach, and by the harmonic language associated with early twentieth century French composers, particularly Debussy and Ravel.
Martin composed his Mass in 1922, during this period of experimentation. He added the Agnus Dei movement in 1926. Though it precedes his encounter with 12-tone technique, the work clearly demonstrates other compositional ideas with which he was then grappling. Modeled after the liturgical masses of the Renaissance, with five movements corresponding to the five ordinary sections of the liturgy, it utilizes techniques typical of Josquin and his fifteenth century contemporaries, particularly paired imitation, where the words and melody of one segment of the choir are immediately echoed by another segment of the choir. Large chunks of imitative, almost fugato-like writing suggest the sound and texture characteristic of late sixteenth century composers Palestrina and Victoria; the double-choir framework upon which the work is built, where the two choirs are clearly differentiated from and juxtaposed to one anther, hark back to the seventeenth century Venetian style exemplified in the works of Giovanni Gabrieli.
Along with these historically conscious elements, we hear rhythmic and harmonic passages reflecting his awareness of non-western music, especially in the percussive effects produced by the second choir through incessant rhythmic patterns, and the presence of non-triadic harmonies, particularly open fifths and tritones.
Traditionally, musical settings of the Mass ordinary were intended for use during worship; through their evolution as a large musical form, mass settings evolved into concert works, typified at their peak of development by such masterpieces as Bach’s Mass in B Minor, which were not suitable for liturgical use. Martin, however, intended his work to function in neither arena; as he wrote in 1970, “I did not at all desire that the work be performed, believing that it would be judged entirely from an aesthetic point of view. I saw it entirely as an affair between God and me…. the expression of religious sentiments, it seems to me, should remain secret and have nothing to do with public opinion.” Upon completing his Mass, Martin put it away, never intending that it be heard publicly. He finally allowed it to be performed, in 1963, almost forty years after its completion, at the urging of his students. He considered it a youthful attempt on the way to his mature style; but modern audiences find it richly sonorous and emotionally satisfying. It is amazing that Martin refused to let it be published or performed for so long; it is now regarded as one of the pinnacles of the twentieth century choral composition.
It took Frank Martin many years before he was satisfied that he had found a musical idiom he could call his own. But he did achieve the difficult feat of creating a musical world balanced between conservative and avant-garde trends, which feels just right, in hindsight. And though his Mass came early in his development, it doesn’t sound like a work in progress, but stands as a fully-formed statement. I’m tempted to say it just took a long time for him to catch up with himself.