Classical
Leonard Bernstein’s Mass was written for the 1971 opening of Washington’s Kennedy Center, and in it he said he wanted ‘to communicate as directly and universally as I can a reaffirmation of faith’. Bernstein did this by setting the traditional Catholic Mass, interpolated with all manner of contemporary musical and dramatic devices, requiring a rock band and street musicians as well as two orchestras and a large choir.
Some regarded it as an unholy mess, typical, they said, of Lenny, the right-on celebrity still infamous for holding a fundraiser for the Black Panthers in 1970.
Engaging the aid of Stephen Schwartz, of Godspell fame, as colibrettist, the Mass was well received in some quarters, but took a pasting from the critic of the New York Times, who called it ‘the greatest melange of styles since that ladies’ magazine recipe for steak fried in peanut butter and marshmallow sauce’.
After listening to the searing live performance from Yannick Nézet Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon, out now) HHH , I take a more sympathetic view. The so-called Celebrant, part priest, part cult leader, who has a nervous breakdown part way through, is brilliantly performed by the American tenor Kevin Vortmann.
If you offer Mass real concentration, it will bring rewards, and even some insights into the nature of religious faith, and the strain it puts not only on believers but on those who have to lead them. The sad thing is, Bernstein never revised it, to remove some of the more timelimited Sixties stuff.