Church Music Association Rehearsal

“[Last evening]: Then to Trinity Chapel Schoolhouse where there was a little rehearsal. About fifty.  The choral work of the Mass from fugue to finale. Very satisfying. Never noticed till now the delicate phrasing of the ‘Et unum Baptisma … et exspecto resurrectionem’ in the Creed.  Wonderful music.  Herr Otto Jahn in his life of Mozart expresses an amazing doubt whether this Mass be Mozart’s at all!!!  If Mozart did not write it, who did?   And what other great works has this unknown composer left us?  But in almost every note of the 12^th Mass you can smell Mozart a mile off.  Only he could have thrown off the exquisite little orchestral phrases that are scattered so profusely through it all.  Any other composer would have economized them and worked them up.  Then the Gloria (so manifestly from the same brain that created the opening of the Jupiter Symphony)–the Cum Sancto Spiritu—and above all, the lovely solo phrase that begins the Benedictus.  That is plainly ‘auf Mozartino auf Archangelus.’  There is a certain aroma which Mozart could convey by two or three bars of melody –a certain flavor of sweet solemn dignity & tenderness–that is peculiar to himself, & not to be found in Beethoven, Haydn or Handel, or anywhere else.”