Performed on June 11, 2023; James Knox Sutterfield, conductor.
Cum Sancto Spiritu in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.
With the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
The Mass no. 6 in E-flat major was one of Schubert’s final compositions, written just a few months before his death. It was commissioned by the Alserkirche in Vienna, the same church where Schubert had been a torchbearer at Beethoven’s funeral scarcely a year earlier. Though he completed the piece before his death, it was not premiered until the fall of 1829, conducted by his older brother Ferdinand, who was himself a teacher and composer and had played first violin in the Schubert family string quartet that the younger Franz also played in and wrote for as a boy. Overall, the Mass in E-flat is a monument to Schubert’s mature musical style and a significant marker of the evolution of early Romantic music.
The “Cum Sancto Spiritu” fugue is one of the two crown jewels of this Mass. As with the other great fugue to come at the end of the Credo, it is massive and harmonically daring. Despite the length, Schubert expertly imbues it with contrast and development that leaves listeners (and sight-readers) wondering where it will go next.