Field Mass

The Field Mass (Czech: Polní mše), H. 279, is a Czech language cantata from 1939 by Bohuslav Martinů.^[1] It was written to honor Czech volunteers fighting in the French army.^[2] The libretto does not follow a traditional mass text but a free libretto written by Jiří Mucha based on Psalm texts and liturgical texts.^[3][4] The work is written for a baritone singer, male chorus, wind instruments, piano, harmonium and percussion.^[5]

The Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián created his ballet for 12 male dancers, Soldier's Mass, to this music in 1980 with the Nederlands Dans Theater.^[6][7]

References

1. Nick Strimple, Choral Music in the Twentieth Century, 2005, p. 103: "Martinu's best-known choral work is the unusual and moving Field Mass, a masterpiece written in 1939 to honor Czech volunteers then fighting in the French army. The librettist Jiří Mucha (b. 1915(–94)) combined psalm verses and some liturgical ..."
2. F. James Rybka, Bohuslav Martinů: The Compulsion to Compose, p. 88: "Around that time, Martinů asked Jiří if he would write the lyrics of his Field Mass (Polní mše). Jiří Mucha was also cast under her spell at this time, and he proposed to Vítka (as he called her) around Christmas time, 1939, and gave her a ..."
3. Martinů's mysterious accident: essays in honor of Michael Henderson, p. 65, Michael Brim Beckerman, Michael Henderson, 2007: "It was edited by the writer Jiří Mucha, the author of the text of Bohuslav Martinu's cantata Field Mass. (Mucha married Vítězslava Kaprálová two months before her death, in 1940.) The period of Martinu's intense social commitment ended with ..."
4. Completed November 4, 1939 according to Robert Simon, Bohuslav Martinů: A Research and Information Guide, p. 21.
5. Joseph Stevenson. Polní mše at AllMusic
6. "Ballet: Netherlands and Soldiers' Mass" by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, 7 July 1981
7. Soldier's Mass, jirikylian.com