2pt a cappella Masses?
  • ClemensRomanusClemensRomanus
    Posts: 1,023
    Are there any a capella Masses for 2 voices? Just got put in charge of a very small small choir and would like something in 2 parts. Thanks!
    Thanked by 1Mary Ann
  • francis
    Posts: 10,848
    Latin or English?
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    And what voice parts/ranges?
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,478
    At CPDL you can run a multi-category search for this sort of question, just click the boxes here. I got 454 pieces, but can't get it to show those in a link.
  • ClemensRomanusClemensRomanus
    Posts: 1,023
    Latin or English is fine, and preferably for equal voices.

    AFH, thanks! I’ll check it out.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Sorry, Clemens, I have to wonder and ask-
    If the setting can be in English, is this for use at an NO/OF Mass?
    If yes, what is the rationale for a two part choral setting that would presumably excise congregational participation other than listening?
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,501
    Here is a discussion on the Gloria we use. It is easy, elegant and would work well with a two part choir, though it is not written for two parts, just be a little creative in the way you use the harmonies.

    https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/comment/60769
  • ClemensRomanusClemensRomanus
    Posts: 1,023
    Melo, I actually am looking for Latin for OF, but added English out of frustration from scouring our parish music library and not finding anything of use (it’s in quite an atrocious state). Your point about participation is well taken, though.
    Thanked by 1melofluent
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,815
    454 pieces

    I only got 48, including some fragments (2-part music + masses). The Delibes is a gem, if you're using organ. For 2 vv. a cappella things get much harder; off the top of my head there's a colonial mass in Da Silva's Mission Music of California (c. 1941).
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Here's the result of running a Multicategory search at CPDL, as Richard did:
    Displaying 48 results, out of 48 total

    2-st. Messe in C (Sigismund Ritter von Neukomm)
    Agnus Dei (from the Canonical Mass) (Zoltan Paulinyi)
    Agnus Dei (Léo Delibes)
    Agnus Dei (Velthur Tognoni)
    Agnus Dei - Messe de la Trinité (Richard Quesnel)
    Agnus Dei III (Richard Quesnel)
    Agnus Dei in A (Théodore Dubois)
    Credo in unum DeumPL (Anonymous)
    Dominicus Messe (Joseph Gregor Zangl)
    Et resurrexit (Claudio Monteverdi)
    Gloria in excelsis Deo (Óscar Manuel Paredes Grau)
    Johannes-Messe (Manfred Hößl)
    Kyrie (Fabrizio Perone)
    Kyrie Magne Deus (tr93) I (Anonymous)
    Laudamus te (José Maurício Nunes Garcia)
    Laudamus te - Duet for sopranos (José Maurício Nunes Garcia)
    Mass (2011) (Scott Villard)
    Mass (St. Stephen Setting) (Denis Mason)
    Messa breve n.3 a 2 voci miste (1991) (Paolo Pandolfo)
    Messa facilissima (Guglielmo Mattioli)
    Messa facilissima in onore SS. nome di Maria (Oreste Ravanello)
    Messa in onore di San Luigi Gonzaga (Oreste Ravanello)
    Messe des Pauvres (Erik Satie)
    Messe op. 9 (V. F. Skop)
    Messe à deux voix égales (Charles Gounod)
    Missa "Te Deum laudamus" (Lorenzo Perosi)
    Missa a 2 voces aequales (Franz Lachner)
    Missa Ambrosii ad 2 voces inaequales (Lorenzo Perosi)
    Missa Brevis (Oliver Hayes)
    Missa brevis canonica (Carlotta Ferrari)
    Missa brevis cantilena (Carlotta Ferrari)
    Missa brevis in F (Andrea Gabrieli)
    Missa Caeciliae (Carl Jaspers)
    Missa de Angelis (Simone Stella)
    Missa de profundis (Luis de Stoa)
    Missa in B for TB (Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens)
    Missa in C, Op. 288 (Robert Führer)
    Missa in F for SA (Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens)
    Missa in G, Op. 43 (Frantisek Zdenek Skuhersky)
    Missa in honorem BMV (Josef Güttler)
    Missa in honorem S. Petri Apostoli, Op. 2 (Joseph Renner)
    Missa No. 5 (Ludwig Stöhr)
    Missa Salve Regina (a 2) (Johann Gustav Eduard Stehle)
    Missa Sanctae Heracleae (Lina Braghetta)
    Missa sopra La (Joachim Kelecom)
    Pastoralmesse in C (Josef Vinzenz Peinl)
    Qui sedes and quoniam (José Maurício Nunes Garcia)
    Santo I (Paolo Pandolfo)
  • Richard R.
    Posts: 776
    .
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,220
    (Looks like you've got the midi-file upload working!)
    Thanked by 1Richard R.
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    It's time for a necropost! Would anyone be interested in singing a 2-voice a cappella Renaissance-style Latin Ordinary if one were available?
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,913
    Yes.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,934
    Ditto.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,913
    In fact, I was speaking to our former choir director trying to contemplate what we were going to do for Midnight Mass; a few years back, we did the Neukomm 2part mass, but it is really intended for two high-trebel soloists, rather than men & women, for instance. It is positively charming, but difficult range-wise.

    Sadly, my little schola is falling apart this year. We have lost someone due to moving away, another person is gone every other weekend due to a son being away at college and suffering a severe football injury, another person is quite literally losing his voice (aging, overweight, and health issues all in one), two strong singers went away to college... I'm left with a very aging schola that is struggling to do things that we had previously learned really well, and I'm finding the need to avoid 4part as much as possible.

    I would love to have access to a nice 2-part mass, à la Dalitz missa tribus vocibus, but even simpler, as it were. Sadly, that is about all we can muster with genuine competence at the moment.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,934
    Serviam, have you considered Dom Perosi’s Missa Te Deum Laudamus? Two part, plus organ.
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    Serviam, the setting I've prepared is for two unequal voices; TB or SA (or possibly AT if you transpose it up a third or a fourth). If you have men (or women) with strong low ranges, you can transpose it down a major third to D-flat and sing it with just basses or just altos. You can also have a soprano and a tenor take the top voice and altos and basses take the bottom voice each part being doubled an octave apart (we did that for Mass today).

    The work itself is a rewrite or Fr. Michael Haller's Missa Tertia for 2 voices with organ. I was looking at it recently and thought, "This is ok, but could be better. And, I bet I could rewrite it to get rid of the organ accompaniment." There just aren't any complete 2 voice a cappella Mass settings out there; Renaissance-style or otherwise. So, I set to work.

    I hope it's of use to you and Stimson and anyone else looking for a pretty easy setting like this. Please let me know if you wind up using it. I'd love to hear a recording if you sing it; even if only made with your cellphone. Feedback/constructive criticism would also be appreciated, if possible. Cheers!
    Missa_Duobus_Vocibus_Haller_Cavoto.pdf
    188K
    Missa_Duobus_Vocibus_Haller_Cavoto_treble.pdf
    189K
    Missa_Duobus_Vocibus_Haller_Cavoto.mp3
    13M
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Heath
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,934
    Theodore Marier did a « Missa Brevis », of which I’ve only seen the Kyrie, which is a contrafactum of Lassus’s Bicinia piece, Beatus Homo. Does anyone know where I can find the rest of the mass?
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    I'd be curious to see that myself.
  • igneusigneus
    Posts: 392
    When the Cecilian Movement reached Bohemia in the 1870's, small inexperienced choirs joining the movement were routinely encouraged to start building their repertory of Mass ordinaries with Stehle's Missa Salve Regina (SA + organ).
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    The English vernacular Marier Missa Brevis (not sure if it's what you're referring to, Stimson) is set forth as Nos. 40 (Lord Have Mercy), 41 (Holy Holy Holy ), and 42 (Lamb of God) in the 1983 edition of Hymns, Psalms and Spiritual Canticles. [It comes before Anton Heiller's English Mass settings] Used to be used regularly before that hymnal was unceremoniously defenestrated without the input of the congregation of its home parish....
  • Nathan_the_Organist
    Posts: 440
    Liam, thank you for using my favorite word: defenestrate. Unfortunately the use of that word has, in fact, been defenestrated.
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    The English vernacular Marier Missa Brevis

    Oh, it's an English setting, eh?

    I would love to have access to a nice 2-part mass, à la Dalitz missa tribus vocibus, but even simpler, as it were. Sadly, that is about all we can muster with genuine competence at the moment.

    I have a feeling that the setting I posted isn't quite what you're looking for. For example, you can't just flip the voices to have it be sung by "WM" choir and have the counterpoint work.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,934
    Here’s the Kyrie, which at the very least is in Greek.

    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58c93e971e5b6cd891517779/t/592e2b9de6f2e11e077ce82a/1496198045249/Kyrie+(Beatus+Homo)+-+Full+Score.pdf
  • MaestroMark32MaestroMark32
    Posts: 66
    I highly recommend Samuel Webbe Mass in A.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Iqs_SO9bk
    Mass in A - Samuel Webbe - Historic Score.pdf
    788K
    Mass in A - Samuel Weber, arr. Charles Weaver.pdf
    221K
    Thanked by 2PaxTecum stulte
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    I highly recommend Samuel Webbe Mass in A

    Funny you should mention this setting. :) It was a discussion about how to handle singing some Masses that lacked certain repetitions of text when singing them liturgically in the EF that got me started with the setting I posted above. The Webbe Mass is nice and might work well in the OF.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,092
    There are several unaccompanied TB Masses by Antonio Lotti. See Madock, David Carter, "A STUDY OF THE STILE ANTICO IN THE MASSES AND MOTETS
    OF ANTONIO LOTTI AS CONTAINED IN THE CODICE MARCIANO ITALIANO IV, VENICE" (Ph.D., Catholic University of America, 1996)

    And I just wrote one:
    https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Missa_pro_averi_(Jeffrey_Quick)

    Re 2-part Masses with organ: We tried the Perosi te deum laudamus, and it didn't really work for us. But we sing this one all the time:
    https://imslp.org/wiki/Missa_in_honorem_S._Joannis_Cantii_Conf.%2C_Op.38_(Walkiewicz%2C_Eugeniusz)
Add a Comment