Composition
Franz Schubert's Mass No. 6 in E-flat major, D. 950 (1828) was composed in the last year of his life, six months before his death from typhoid fever at age thirty-one. It is his largest and most ambitious sacred work, and its combination of lyric beauty, harmonic boldness, and structural command shows Schubert at the full development of his mature powers. The work was not performed during his lifetime; its posthumous premiere in 1865 established it as one of the great Romantic masses.
Biblical Text
The Mass Ordinary provides the text. The Gloria sets Luke 2:14 - "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests" - with the sweeping lyricism characteristic of Schubert at his most inspired. The Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world") draws on John 1:29's Baptist declaration and the entire tradition of the Eucharistic theology it introduces.
Schubert's omissions from the Nicene Creed are theologically significant: he drops "and in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" from the Credo - an omission he made in several of his masses - suggesting a personal theological ambivalence about institutional religion while retaining belief in God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. This selectivity makes his masses documents of personal faith as well as liturgical compositions.
Creator and Legacy
The Benedictus of the E-flat Mass is widely regarded as the most sublime movement in Schubert's sacred output - a soprano solo of unearthly beauty over hushed strings that approaches the sacred through the medium of pure musical beauty rather than doctrinal argument. Schubert's masses embody the Romantic understanding of music as the most adequate language for the transcendent: not theology but beauty, not argument but song. The E-flat Mass remains a cornerstone of the Romantic choral canon, performed by major choral societies worldwide.