Sacred Music And The Classical Style

Charles Rosen in his book The Classical Style, states “the Classical style is at its most problematic in religious music”. Throughout the course of history, with the exception of Venice, the church has rarely been an initiator, or even a supporter, of stylistic revolution. This is perhaps not surprising from an institution which depends fundamentally on the continuity of tradition for its very existence. The classical period was very much a period of stylistic revolution, and one in which instrumental music dominated.  One needs only to remember the 158 symphonies, 92 instrumental concerti and 123 string-quartets written collectively by the three masters of the period – Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, never mind the countless other piano trios, quintets, serenades, divertimenti and instrumental sonatas, and the scores of instrumental works by other classical composers. The hostility of the authorities, particularly the Roman Catholic church, towards instrumental music throughout the latter part of the eighteenth century was a significant problem for the classical musicians. We must remember that, unlike northern central Europe, where the Reformation (and Lutheranism in particular) had altered the face of the church, the south, including Vienna, was dominated by the Roman Catholic church. Mozart’s years in Vienna largely coincided with Josephinism – the decade during which Emperor Josef II significantly restricted the financial and political power of the church through legislation and imperial decrees. The Austrian government even went as far as to restrict, by law, the use of musical instruments in church during the 1780s – a period of great creativity for both Haydn and Mozart. It is significant therefore that all of Mozart’s masses were written between 1768 and 1780. Emperor Josef II also abolished “elaborate” church music in a decree in 1783. With the exception of the Requiem Mozart ignored the genre for the rest of his life, although Haydn resumed the practice of writing elaborate masses on the accession of Prince Nikolaus II in 1796, when he was writing for the private chapel of the Esterházy family. 

Following on from the Baroque importation of Italian musicians, the main influence on church music through the eighteenth century was the so-called Neapolitan School. Its exponents were trained in the conservatoires, where they brought a certain dramatic, operatic style to the composition of church music and also to music required for the court. The Viennese were drawn to, and heavily influenced by, this new style, called the Stile Galant or Rococo. Caldara and Fux were highly influential Kapellmeisters in Vienna, who wrote mass settings for use in St Stephen’s Cathedral and in the private chapels of the Emperor. In reading source material, however, one senses a certain despondency from the great composers where the sacred genre was concerned. Mozart’s two substantial attempts at sacred choral music, the Requiem and the Great Mass in C Minor, both remain unfinished.  Haydn’s masses attracted constant criticism during his own lifetime for their “unsuitable character” (he himself thought his brother Michael’s church music vastly superior to his own), whilst Beethoven’s Mass in C was responsible for his most humiliating public failure. Were these difficulties caused by a tangible lack of personal religious faith in the composers themselves? Was the sort of spiritual application to music for the church, as expressed by the undoubtedly devout J.S. Bach, a generation before, lacking in their music? Was the heavy-handed nature of the Catholic church and the Austrian authorities a dampener on the creative spirit of contemporary musical genius? Or was it simply that the new style itself, the stile galant, which blew away the heavy and sometimes turgid aspects of the Baroque style, replacing them with a new elegance and lightness of phrase, regarded as chic by the eighteenth century bourgeoisie, was not a suitable medium to express weighty and ancient religious texts with centuries of tradition behind them?  A Cappella, or unaccompanied, singing has always suited the church best. It is, after all, a medium in which the text is bound to take centre stage, free from instrumental distractions. When written to be played at a fast tempo, classical music is often jocular, racy, busy, crowded, ferocious even. When it is written to be played at a slow tempo the mood is often lugubrious or pensive, and sometimes wistful.  Rosen suggests that these elements of style were, for the authorities, and also for the composers themselves, barriers to the satisfactory expression of the text.