It's not often that I venture outside the strict bounds of so-called "classical" music, but every once in a while I do, and the results are often both surprising and unexpected.
In 1970, Leonard Bernstein composed Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Dancers, and Players to a commission for the opening of the Kennedy Centre for the Arts in Washington DC in 1971. Ever since, critics have argued over this multi-faceted work's place in the composer's canon, and in the history of music.
While I had no opportunity to see the initial production, and Mass has been only rarely re-staged (although more frequently performed in concert), the original cast recording conducted by Maurice Peress is still available in re-issue on Sony Classics. It was, of course, recorded under Bernstein's personal supervision. Several more recent recordings have also been made. My general impression from that original recording is that the work's many shortcomings are outweighed by its strengths.
Of course, you have to remember that Mass was, in the most literal sense of the term, an occasional piece. As such, it is very clearly representative of one way of looking at the events of its own time. The shadow of the Vietnam War, that wrenching crisis of America's conscience, broods over many pages of the libretto.
That libretto is, perhaps, the greatest weakness of Mass, viewed as a lasting musical work. It is, in fact, so much of its time that it may appear incomprehensible to anyone young enough to have missed living through that era. It is, in large measure, filled with satire (dripping with satire, really, in the "Gospel Lesson: God Said", a parodistic takedown of the Creation story). Other passages are earnest to the point of being embarrassing. But with all of that, the text is clear as a bell about its intentions, and the rhyming is smooth, never forced. The words communicate very well as they are being sung.
The story (and there is a story line) shows a young man who appears, singing A Simple Song and accompanying himself on a folk guitar. He is invested with the robes of a priest and the ritual gets underway. At each stage of the "service", his robes have ever more elaborate and multiple layers added. At the climax of the Agnus Dei, he flings the Sacrament to the ground, rips off his robes, dances on the altar, all in a musical mad scene even more harrowing than others found in earlier operas. Finally he collapses downstage centre, exhausted and used up, and crawls off into the orchestra pit. A pair of singers start a quiet canon arising out of a reprise of the opening number, and all the cast gradually join in. At last, the Celebrant appears again from the wings, dressed as at the beginning, and joins the canon, and the circling chain of embraces taking place with it. The boys choir descends the steps and exits through the audience, touching hands with audience members as they go and urging them to "pass it on" as a taped voice says, "The Mass is ended; go in peace."
Now, as kitschy as all this sounds, for my money it works -- and I know there will be those who disagree with me, perhaps vehemently. Musically, Mass is a compendium of so many styles that it's difficult to name them all: rock, pop, jazz, blues, classical, are all used. The strength of this miscellany is that Bernstein knew how to work in all those modes, and filled his work with catchy tunes, gripping harmonies, and hair-raising climaxes.
His method, in broad outline, is the same as Britten's method in War Requiem: interweave the Latin text of the mass with modern poetry, expressing complementary viewpoints. In Bernstein's work, there is no such strict divide between the musical styles. Classical devices like canons coexist with rock riffs. Orchestral strings interweave with electric guitars and drum kits.
The net result, as mixed as it is, becomes for me very compelling. I have a similar reaction to many earlier (and undoubtedly greater) works. I hate having to leave in the middle to go off and do something else; once the piece has begun, I have to -- want to -- listen to the end (a little less than 2 hours). There are highlights, of course, but in general the work as a whole exceeds its component parts. Some of the best parts are the ones where Bernstein makes brilliant use of the irregular rhythms he loved so much: the 5-beat pattern of the Gloria Patri, for instance, or the Gospel Lesson where the very catchy tempo moves in groups of 11 beats!
The success of the performance rests, in no small measure, on the amazing performance of the penultimate mad scene by Alan Titus, the young (at the time) baritone who sang the role of the Celebrant. As recorded, his voice covers an enormous range of tone colours from deep-throated low notes to high falsettos, with everything from shouts to whispers in between. It's not surprising that his career took off after such high-level exposure, but also and not least because of his extraordinary achievement in that taxing 15-minute mad scene.
The one section that I always go away hearing on replay in my mind is the gradual crescendo of the Agnus Dei. Here, in his extroverted way, Bernstein is clearly following Beethoven's indication that this is "a prayer for inward and outward peace". The texts sung by various soloists indicate turbulence of mind and emotion, and a need for certainties which life simply cannot provide. As the piece builds up, more and more layers of sound from various sources are added on until it becomes an unholy uproar. This cacophony is suddenly stopped dead by the Celebrant's triple cry of: "Pacem! Pacem! PACEM!!!", followed by the sound of the monstrance and chalice shattering on the floor.
The quiet ending of this exuberant piece always leaves me reflecting that we -- all of us -- need to sometimes strip away the layers of artifice built up in our busy lives, and reach back into that inner core where the ultimate roots of our personal needs lie. Not easy to do, in our noisy, hectic, hustle-bustle world -- but ultimately, I think very necessity for our sanity and well being. That message for me resounds much louder than they preachy anti-war material in the text. But it is the whole work that takes me there, because the entire piece is one single prolonged build-up to the moment when the Celebrant loses it completely -- and then finds it again, right back where he had his beginning.
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