The Idea of a Finale

Abstract Viewed naively, and of course quite improperly, as a belletristic text, the Ordinary of the Mass reveals many oddities, not to say shortcomings. The start is propitious: three statements of, Kyrie eleison,, three of, Christe elision,, and three more of, Kyrie eleison,. Here, there is economy of utterance and perfect ternary proportion on two levels. Were it not for a Trinitarian scruple that makes the subject of the second, Kyrie eleison, the Holy Spirit, in contradistinction to God the Father in the first, even more composers would have chosen a purely ternary musical structure for the movement. The Gloria is more problematic. Its eighty-four words and lack of simple repetition (although some phrases show parallelism) mean that unless special measures are taken, its length will greatly exceed that of the Kyrie, possibly with adverse consequences for the overall balance. From the Baroque period onwards, the Gordian knot is often cut, in that the Gloria is segmented to become sometimes as many as ten or eleven movements (as against the three of the Kyrie). Most pre-Baroque settings retain the Gloria as a single movement (albeit one often subdivided into sections) and adopt various expedients to cut down its length: severe rationing of melisma and word repetition, homophonic texture or imitation at exceptionally dose time intervals, and in extremis simultaneous presentation of different portions of text.