Academic reading suggestions: Classical-era sacred music
  • Schönbergian
    Posts: 1,063
    I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for material covering the Classical-era Mass Ordinary and/or other sacred liturgical music of the period: stylistic traits and influences, musical analyses, or other historical influences. My search of the local university music library has been mostly fruitless.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    Some dissertations of possible interest:
    THE ORCHESTRAL MASSES OF IGNAZ HOLZBAUER (1711-1783): AUTHENTICITY, CHRONOLOGY, AND STYLE WITH THEMATIC CATALOGUE AND SELECTED TRANSCRIPTIONS
    BUSH, DEANNA D. University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1982. 8304087.

    A survey of Latin choral motets from the classical era
    Hocking, Joe Cook, Jr. The University of Oklahoma, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1995. 9530067

    Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch and his Mass for Sixteen Voices with performance edition
    Kelly, Ryan M. Michigan State University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2012. 3515657.

    Johann Michael Haydn and the orchestral Solemn Mass in eighteenth-century Vienna and Salzburg
    Arenas, Erick. Stanford University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2013. 3574072

    .A performer's guide to Esteban Salas' “Misa de Difuntos”
    Cabrera, Mirna Y. University of Kansas, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2011. 3458212.

    THE "MESSA DELLA BENEDICENZA": A MASS BY MICHAEL HAYDN, 1737-1806.
    DONALDSON, DONALD DON. University of Missouri - Kansas City, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1975. 7611483.

    THE VIENNESE CONCERTED MASS OF THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD: HISTORY, ANALYSIS, AND THEMATIC CATALOGUE
    MAC INTYRE, BRUCE CAMPBELL. City University of New York, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1984. 8409408.

    The tradition and ideal of the stile antico in Viennese sacred music, 1740–1800
    Chen, Jen-Yen. Harvard University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2000. 9972277.

    Litaniae Lauretanae": Sacred music at the Viennese imperial court, ca. 1700-1783
    Armstrong, James Isbell, Jr. The University of Wisconsin - Madison, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1993. 9408544.

    Liturgical music in late eighteenth-century Dresden: Johann Gottlieb Naumann, Joseph Schuster, and Franz Seydelmann. Volume 1: Text. Volume 2: Facsimiles.
    Ongley, Laurie Hasselmann. Yale University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1992. 9315233.

    The Austro-Bohemian pastorella and pastoral mass to c1780
    Germer, Mark. New York University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1989. 9016263.

    THE PRACTICE OF MUSIC AT MELK MONASTERY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
    FREEMAN, ROBERT NORMAN. University of California, Los Angeles, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1971. 7202814.

    None of this is a recommendation, just some of what's out there. There's a lot more; this is just what I pulled out of the ProQuest full-text with crappy delimiting skills. Maybe I'll look for books later. I haven't read a ton to make personal recommendations.
    Thanked by 3Schönbergian CHGiffen M. Jackson Osborn
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    Music in eighteenth-century Austria (Cambridge U. Press, 1996) has several chapters of interest, including "Haydn's Missa sunt bona mixta malis and the a cappella tradition" by David Wyn-Jones, which deals with Austrian sacred music for voices with continuo.

    I have An Issue with the received historiography of sacred music (insofar as there is one), which is pretty purely Caecilian. The story: "Polyphony developed to its apex in Palestrina. Then the tradition was preserved in Rome, but elsewhere it was lost to flash trash. It was partially recovered in the 19th century, but then oppressed by modernism in the 20th c. before succumbing in 1964". There's a lot that this story doesn't account for, esp. the interpenetration of the 1st and 2nd Practices all through the Baroque and into the 19th c., and the effects of sociological happenings (disestablishmentarianism, commercial publishers, etc.) on the type of church music that was wanted. Most egregiously, the narrative picks a winner, and sees non-winner styles as being aberrant instead of expressions of a dynamic living Church.
    Thanked by 1NihilNominis
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