The six-member chamber ensemble Dunedin Consort commissioned six Scottish composers to collaborate on settings of the Ordinary of the Mass. Each of the six sections of The People's Mass: Plainchant for the Feast of All Saints Day consists of three elements: a traditional chant melody for the Proper, followed by an unaccompanied six-part Latin setting of the Mass movement and a solo setting in English of a thematically related poem, accompanied by harp. The plan works well; the austerity of the monophonic chant, the richness ...
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The six-member chamber ensemble Dunedin Consort commissioned six Scottish composers to collaborate on settings of the Ordinary of the Mass. Each of the six sections of The People's Mass: Plainchant for the Feast of All Saints Day consists of three elements: a traditional chant melody for the Proper, followed by an unaccompanied six-part Latin setting of the Mass movement and a solo setting in English of a thematically related poem, accompanied by harp. The plan works well; the austerity of the monophonic chant, the richness of the polyphony, and the simplicity of the harp-accompanied songs create an experience that is musically varied while being unified by the structure of the Mass. The program notes claim that this is the first time a number of composers have been invited to contribute individual movements to a composite Mass, when that tradition actually has a long history. In fact, before Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame, written in the 1360s, virtually all Mass settings were compiled from the works...
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