It's Christmas Day and I'm listening to the original recording of Leonard Bernstein's Mass, a work I fell in love with in the late 1970s and one which still moves me deeply every time I hear it.
Mass follow's the journey of the Celebrant from a man of faith leading his congregants in the Mass to one who descends into a crisis of faith as he is overwhelmed by a barrage of attacks on God and Faith from his flock at each meditation. The work devolves into a chaotic frenzy until the climactic moment when the Celebrant smashes the consecrated host on the floor. The role of the Celebrant was performed by Alan Titus who has a Baritone so warm it could melt butter.
Mass was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy as part of the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. and premiered on September 8, 1971.
I would have loved to have sung the role of the Celebrant in my tenor/baritone years. I sang the "Whispers of living, echoes of warning..." solo from World Without End when I auditioned for the role of Tony in the University of Michigan's 1978 production of West Side Story. I'd hoped my mastery of Bernstein's complex syncopations and musical range would clinch me the part. I ended up being cast as a Shark. It was a thrill just to be a part of that production.
I was pleased to see a depiction of Leonard Bernstein composing the final lines of Mass at his piano in Maestro. The snippets of Bernstein's works for inclusion in the movie were well curated.
If you haven't heard Leonard Bernstein's Mass before, I highly recommend you do so, ideally the 1971 version with Alan Titus as Celebrant. And, if you haven't see the movie Maestro yet I urge you to give it a view.
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