Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Missa longa C-Dur KV 262 (246a)
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Missa longa C-Dur KV 262 (246a)
- Instrumentation 4 Soloists, Mixed Choir (SATB), Organ and Orchestra
- Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Series Bärenreiter Urtext
- Editor Walter Senn
- Edition Score (Urtext) Download
- Publisher Bärenreiter Verlag
- Order no. BA4853-DL
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Description:
The Mass KV 262 (246a) is known as the *Missa longa*. Leopold Mozart wrote this title on the cover of the collection—based on its opening words—that once contained the autograph scores of five of Mozart’s Masses in C major. Mozart scholarship lists 1776 as the year of the work’s composition, without noting that this is merely a conjecture.
The monumental scale of the Missa longa suggests that the work was composed for a particularly solemn occasion. If one looks for notable ecclesiastical events that took place in the 1770s, one certainly includes the consecration, held on November 17, 1776, in Salzburg Cathedral, of Ignaz Josef, Count von Spaur, who was the coadjutor and administrator of the Diocese of Brixen, as titular bishop of Chrysopel. Erich Schenk has demonstrated that the "Spaur Mass" by Wolfgang, mentioned in Leopold Mozart’s letter of May 28, 1778, refers to the consecration of Ignaz Josef Spaur, who was a long-time acquaintance of the Mozart family; all the more reason to believe that the composition for the consecration was also a personal tribute. The only setting of the Ordinary from this period that is appropriate for such a solemn occasion is the *Missa longa*.
The monumental scale of the Missa longa suggests that the work was composed for a particularly solemn occasion. If one looks for notable ecclesiastical events that took place in the 1770s, one certainly includes the consecration, held on November 17, 1776, in Salzburg Cathedral, of Ignaz Josef, Count von Spaur, who was the coadjutor and administrator of the Diocese of Brixen, as titular bishop of Chrysopel. Erich Schenk has demonstrated that the "Spaur Mass" by Wolfgang, mentioned in Leopold Mozart’s letter of May 28, 1778, refers to the consecration of Ignaz Josef Spaur, who was a long-time acquaintance of the Mozart family; all the more reason to believe that the composition for the consecration was also a personal tribute. The only setting of the Ordinary from this period that is appropriate for such a solemn occasion is the *Missa longa*.