Missa solemnis in the style of Mozart: V. Domine Deus

Niilo Korsulainen

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4 min.

Program Notes: This movement is part of an ongoing project: a large-scale mass where my goal is to emulate the mature church style of W.A. Mozart as accurately as possible. The work mainly draws inspiration from Mozart's largest work in the genre, the so-called "Great mass" in C minor, K. 427. After a bunch of choral movements and one operatic duet, it is now finally time to introduce what might well be my favourite category of Mozartian mass movements: the soloist ensemble! Make no mistake – this is not the kind of ensemble writing you see in operas but rather a unique genre of music native to the church style. It is a style of music that, at least for Mozart, owes much to Händel and the Italian Baroque, with the kind of contrapuntally woven vocal lines and angular string accompaniments you don't really encounter in Mozart's secular music. These fast-paced pieces (K. 427: Domine Deus, Quoniam and Benedictus) are full of "drive" and their opening ritornelli are some of the catchiest tunes in the repertoire. My goal in this movement was to achieve the concise form of Mozart's Domine Deus while writing for the full quartet of soloists that Mozart only uses in the Benedictus. Mozart's graceful Domine Deus is for two sopranos, so his procedure is slightly different: both voices sing a long phrase alone before engaging in a duet, whereas with 3 or more voices, it is more sensible to begin with fugal imitation. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.