This work originally started as a sort of musical joke or basic
"sketch" while I was in college studying composition in 1996. I
wrote the piece for a baritone singer friend of mine (now Fr.
Stephan Baljian, the person to whom this piece is dedicated), as we
both studied music at UMass/Amherst. I wrote several short
movements (no longer than 5-10 bars each) for a Kyrie Eleison, a
Christe Eleison, another Kyrie, and a Gloria. I had in mind the
Organ Masses of Haydn, which provided utility in his day, as well
as themselves poking fun at the stuffiness of the church
institution with their brevity and whimsy. I called my initial work
a "Missa Brevis," taking that notion to an extreme level with this
ultra short work. In 2012, as I was looking through many of my old
scores from college, I saw these short "Mass" movements, and
thought to myself "I should really finish this." Well, I'm not the
same person I was in 1996, and my inclination for how this work
should be "completed" did not end up keeping the theme of "Missa
Brevis" that I had started with some 16 years earlier. The 4
movements contained in this score were all completed very quickly
in January and February 2012. Little did I know that my little Mass
setting (which I started more as a joke back in 1996) would turn
into a 70-page piece that takes 20 minutes to perform. After
completing the first 4 movements of this piece, I started to hit a
bit of a block.... perhaps it was Divine Guidance telling me "leave
well enough alone"? For whatever reason, each time I would start
trying to write the traditional final movement of most mass
settings--the "Agnus Dei"--I would feel somehow that this
additional, 5th movement was somehow making the work too long and
was sort of anti-climactical, as the Agnus Dei is traditionally a
more calming, reflective movement. I decided to leave the Mass as a
4-movement work, trusting that the demands I was making on both the
baritone soloist and on the pianist were high enough in the
4-movement structure. The piece also feels more or less "complete"
after the triple-forte ending of the "Sanctus & Benedictus"
movement (movement #4). This piece is probably not at all
appropriate for liturgical use, though in the right context, it
might work that way. If you have any questions about this work,
want to contact me for any reason, or want to report a performance,
please email me at
[email protected] "Mass for Baritone
& Piano" is an incredibly intense, rip-roaring exploration of
an ancient Latin (with some Greek) text that has been spoken or
sung millions of times for many hundreds of years now by Catholics
all over the world. Strangely though, not being Catholic myself, I
don't see this work as a religious work per se, though it is
spiritual in the sense that music itself can elevate and expand our
consciousnesses if we're open to it doing so. I am hoping that
while "fun" might not be the word someone might use in approaching
this piece, that the performers and audience alike will find the
experience enjoyable, expressive, and emotionally charged.
--Michael David Golzmane
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