Frank Martin's Messe pour double chœur a cappella - Presented by Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland

Our featured work, the Mass for double choirs by Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974). Martin’s Mass sounds like no other. It never needed to, because Martin originally intended no one but God to hear it. This left him free to explore his own faith experience and draw on whatever styles allowed him to express it. Different parts sound as dreamy as Debussy or as vigorous as Bach, especially in the Gloria and the Credo, complete with fugues; in places, it recalls the twelve-tone serialism of Schoenberg. Perhaps most striking is the Agnus Dei, which he composed two years after the other movements. At a steady tempo, both choirs invoke the Lamb of God and ask for mercy, with one choir singing a medieval-sounding unison line while the other hypnotically murmurs the same words in even quarter notes. Beneath the melody, shifting harmonies subtly move through the second choir’s meditative chanting, suggesting gradual insights growing within everyday life. By the last repetition, the first choir finally abandons unison, and rich harmonies pervade both choirs in a prayer for peace. Performed April 27, 2025 Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland https://www.portlandschoir.org